SF overdose deaths down in first half of ’24

Drug-overdose deaths in San Francisco fell 27% in June, with The City recording fewer fatalities through the first six months of 2024 than the same time last year, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

But San Francisco’s six-month total is its second-highest since The City began recording that information in 2020, putting it on pace to record more overdose deaths than in any year but 2023.

There have been 374 drug-overdose deaths in the first six months of 2024, according to city data published Monday, down from the 405 recorded during the same time in 2023. The former total has San Francisco on pace to record 748 such deaths, which would be fewer than the record-setting 810 fatalities in 2023 but more than every other year since The City started recording data in 2020.

There were 48 overdose deaths in June, 18 fewer than the previous month and nine fewer than in June 2023. Nearly 72% of the deaths San Francisco has recorded this year were attributed to fentanyl, down from more than 80% in all of 2023.

“Nevertheless, overdoses remain a crisis in our city and and in our country,” said Dr. Hillary Kunins, the director of behavioral health services with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, on Monday. “While the Department of Public Health cannot solve this crisis alone, we have taken significant steps to address overdoses.”

Last year, July (79) and August (88) were The City’s third-deadliest and deadliest months, respectively, for drug overdoses. Those months coincided with an increased effort using state and federal resources in San Francisco to assist law-enforcement crackdowns on drug trafficking, with a focus on high-volume fentanyl seizures.

The Department of Public Health has expanded efforts to address the ongoing overdose crisis, launching a pilot program in the spring to facilitate the prescription of addiction-treatment medicine.

The Night Navigation street-care team runs the program, which connects people with doctors between 8 p.m. and midnight via telehealth. The team, which operates out of the Tenderloin, provides assistance connecting people to shelter and hotel rooms from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m.

Kunins said the telehealth pilot conducted 750 telehealth visits between people and physicians from March to June, with doctors prescribing patients buprenorphine for pickup at pharmacies and referring others to one of The City’s certified methadone clinics.

In some instances, the program also provides people with a weeklong intensive stabilization program that includes shelter and case-management services.

Since the program’s launch, about 100 people have completed the seven days, Kunins said, and more than 70% have continued their medication.

Along with this program, the department has expanded hours at various treatment centers in The City — including DPH’s Behavioral Access Center at 1380 Howard St. — and added 400 more beds for residential and treatment care.

One of the department’s newer initiatives, the Bridge and Engagement Services Neighborhoods Team , was launched in March 2023. BEST focuses on connecting unhoused San Franciscans who have behavioral-health issues with mental-health services, substance-use treatment and other resources.

Kunins said the team placed more than 160 people into substance-use treatment in the first six months of this year.

“Many of the people that we work with are in the cycle of homelessness and addiction,” said Louie Dorath, a peer specialist with the program. “We help them break the cycle.”