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"content": "\u003cp>One outgoing supervisor is calling on the city to harmonize public health and law enforcement’s approach to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/overdose-crisis\">overdose crisis\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although overdose deaths have dipped 20% to date this year compared to 2023, San Francisco continues to face an epidemic-level drug overdose crisis. Supervisor Dean Preston, who lost his reelection bid earlier this month, released a report on Tuesday that offers a blueprint for how San Francisco can emulate an approach used in Zurich, Switzerland – one of San Francisco’s sister cities that similarly struggled with an opioid crisis in the 1990s, but has since become an international model for overdose prevention and reducing drug-related crimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is making sure the Department of Public Health, the Police Department, homeless services and others at the table are actually pursuing a unified approach, and we do not have anything like that in San Francisco right now,” Preston told KQED. “My hope is that this is a top priority for not only the new mayor but for incoming supervisors also.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After implementing a “Four Pillars Strategy” that unites prevention, treatment, harm reduction and law enforcement, overdose deaths in Zurich decreased by 50% from 1991 to 2010, according to Stanford Social Innovation Review, along with a 65% decrease in HIV infections, and 80% decrease in new heroin users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UCSF addiction expert Daniel Ciccarone has studied safe consumption sites in Zurich and around the globe. He said the report offers a “rational, clear-minded policy analysis that the city needs for this crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The beauty of this report is it gives us an opportunity to look at evidence-based approaches and move the city forward,” he said. “There is no good ‘Plan B.’ Relying on police interventions is not sustainable, and bribing or threatening people into treatment does not work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several differences could make implementation look different between San Francisco and Zurich, including that the Swiss city is about half the size of San Francisco, has a smaller homeless population, and has more medication-assisted treatment options legally available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inspired by the success in Zurich, Preston requested that the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst office produce the report on how San Francisco might replicate that success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11997838\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11997838\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Supervisor Dean Preston speaks to a local resident at a bus stop at McAllister and Divisadero in San Francisco on June 13, 2024, while campaigning for reelection to the Board of Supervisors District 5. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Do we need to do exactly everything that Zurich has done? No. But the defining feature of their Four Pillars approach is that all of these relevant departments are working on each pillar,” he said. “They don’t just work to put Band-Aids on a situation or reactive crisis response. They actually have both a short and long-term plan for success, and that’s what this city has really been lacking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the top of the report’s recommendations is a call for all departments working on overdose issues to coordinate – a seemingly simple task but one that the city has struggled to achieve throughout the current overdose crisis. For example, when the city opened up a temporary overdose prevention center in 2022, police fined some drug users for carrying publicly-funded harm reduction supplies that were provided at the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie plans to initiate a state of emergency for the fentanyl crisis when he takes office in January, which Preston said could be an opportunity to implement the report’s recommendations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, it’s unclear exactly what the incoming mayor will do with the emergency powers. Lurie ran on a platform of increasing drug treatment availability, improving behavioral health interventions and creating more supportive housing, as well as using ankle monitors on first-time drug dealers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am in the process of setting up a meeting with Mayor-elect Lurie to go over this,” Preston said. “A culture shift needs to happen, but it’s all doable. And one of the problems right now is we just are not pursuing a unified approach to solve this crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11909488\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11909488\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/03/RS53605_010_SanFrancisco_TLLinkageCenter_02082022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/03/RS53605_010_SanFrancisco_TLLinkageCenter_02082022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/03/RS53605_010_SanFrancisco_TLLinkageCenter_02082022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/03/RS53605_010_SanFrancisco_TLLinkageCenter_02082022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/03/RS53605_010_SanFrancisco_TLLinkageCenter_02082022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/03/RS53605_010_SanFrancisco_TLLinkageCenter_02082022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People wait in line to get into the Tenderloin Linkage Center in San Francisco on Feb. 8, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lurie wouldn’t be the first to declare a state of emergency, which allows the city to bypass certain bureaucratic steps to release and direct urgently needed resources. In December 2021, Mayor London Breed declared an emergency in the Tenderloin, a neighborhood with the highest rate of overdose deaths in the city. It allowed Breed to call in federal law enforcement agencies to help slow the flow of fentanyl into the city and arrest drug dealers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During her emergency order, the city temporarily opened up a safe consumption site in 2022, called the Tenderloin Center, a medically supervised space where drug users could get off the street and get free meals, showers and other basic necessities. More than 300 people visited the center daily, and health professionals reversed 100% of overdoses that occurred on-site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The safe consumption site was intended to be temporary, and the city closed it after about 10 months following public criticism and scrutiny from local businesses who complained about long lines outside extending into United Nations Plaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That same year, San Francisco released an Overdose Prevention Plan that called for opening up replacement centers in more dispersed wellness hubs around the city. However, today, efforts to open such centers remain at a standstill and political willpower to make them happen has waned in anticipation of President Donald Trump’s second term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12000161 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/021_SanFrancisco_StFrancisER_08262021_qed-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Budget and Legislative Analyst’s report also recommends that the city open up safe consumption sites and coordinate with law enforcement to help people move safely indoors and reduce drug use in public spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the report also calls for expanding medication-assisted treatment, like buprenorphine, which helps curb cravings and withdrawal symptoms for people struggling with opioid addiction. The city has increased access to this type of therapy by reducing barriers, such as providing medication treatment on demand to residents in permanent supportive housing and expanding the city’s behavioral health pharmacy hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re starting to see more people accept treatment, whether it’s abstinence-based, buprenorphine or methadone,” Mayor London Breed told reporters at a Monday press conference about the city’s overdose response. “The people are out there doing the work and making sure that folks know it’s not a one-size-fits-all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the report, about 75% of Zurich residents with opioid addiction take medication for opioid use disorder. But in San Francisco, only about 25% of people struggling with opioid use disorder are connected to medication-assisted treatments, according to the BLA report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s partly because many people struggling with opioid addiction may not know that the treatment options exist, said San Francisco resident Juliana Gurrola Nuño, who is now part of the city’s public health campaign \u003ca class=\"c-link\" href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12014134/sf-launches-media-campaign-to-promote-addiction-treatment-and-recovery-services\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-stringify-link=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12014134/sf-launches-media-campaign-to-promote-addiction-treatment-and-recovery-services\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">promoting available drug treatment and stories of San Franciscans\u003c/a> who benefitted from recovery services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are services available to help you start your recovery journey, even if it’s just taking the first small step. But not every person struggling with addiction knows about these resources,” she told reporters at the news conference. “I know that when I was in my addiction, I had no idea of any of these services. I want to change that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "To reduce overdose deaths, a report released Tuesday calls for stronger coordination among San Francisco’s law enforcement, public health and other agencies tackling the crisis.",
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"title": "‘A Culture Shift Needs to Happen’: SF Report Offers Zurich-Style Approach to Drug Crisis | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>One outgoing supervisor is calling on the city to harmonize public health and law enforcement’s approach to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/overdose-crisis\">overdose crisis\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although overdose deaths have dipped 20% to date this year compared to 2023, San Francisco continues to face an epidemic-level drug overdose crisis. Supervisor Dean Preston, who lost his reelection bid earlier this month, released a report on Tuesday that offers a blueprint for how San Francisco can emulate an approach used in Zurich, Switzerland – one of San Francisco’s sister cities that similarly struggled with an opioid crisis in the 1990s, but has since become an international model for overdose prevention and reducing drug-related crimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is making sure the Department of Public Health, the Police Department, homeless services and others at the table are actually pursuing a unified approach, and we do not have anything like that in San Francisco right now,” Preston told KQED. “My hope is that this is a top priority for not only the new mayor but for incoming supervisors also.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After implementing a “Four Pillars Strategy” that unites prevention, treatment, harm reduction and law enforcement, overdose deaths in Zurich decreased by 50% from 1991 to 2010, according to Stanford Social Innovation Review, along with a 65% decrease in HIV infections, and 80% decrease in new heroin users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UCSF addiction expert Daniel Ciccarone has studied safe consumption sites in Zurich and around the globe. He said the report offers a “rational, clear-minded policy analysis that the city needs for this crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The beauty of this report is it gives us an opportunity to look at evidence-based approaches and move the city forward,” he said. “There is no good ‘Plan B.’ Relying on police interventions is not sustainable, and bribing or threatening people into treatment does not work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several differences could make implementation look different between San Francisco and Zurich, including that the Swiss city is about half the size of San Francisco, has a smaller homeless population, and has more medication-assisted treatment options legally available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inspired by the success in Zurich, Preston requested that the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst office produce the report on how San Francisco might replicate that success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11997838\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11997838\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/240613-DeanPreston-02-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Supervisor Dean Preston speaks to a local resident at a bus stop at McAllister and Divisadero in San Francisco on June 13, 2024, while campaigning for reelection to the Board of Supervisors District 5. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Do we need to do exactly everything that Zurich has done? No. But the defining feature of their Four Pillars approach is that all of these relevant departments are working on each pillar,” he said. “They don’t just work to put Band-Aids on a situation or reactive crisis response. They actually have both a short and long-term plan for success, and that’s what this city has really been lacking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the top of the report’s recommendations is a call for all departments working on overdose issues to coordinate – a seemingly simple task but one that the city has struggled to achieve throughout the current overdose crisis. For example, when the city opened up a temporary overdose prevention center in 2022, police fined some drug users for carrying publicly-funded harm reduction supplies that were provided at the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie plans to initiate a state of emergency for the fentanyl crisis when he takes office in January, which Preston said could be an opportunity to implement the report’s recommendations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, it’s unclear exactly what the incoming mayor will do with the emergency powers. Lurie ran on a platform of increasing drug treatment availability, improving behavioral health interventions and creating more supportive housing, as well as using ankle monitors on first-time drug dealers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am in the process of setting up a meeting with Mayor-elect Lurie to go over this,” Preston said. “A culture shift needs to happen, but it’s all doable. And one of the problems right now is we just are not pursuing a unified approach to solve this crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11909488\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11909488\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/03/RS53605_010_SanFrancisco_TLLinkageCenter_02082022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/03/RS53605_010_SanFrancisco_TLLinkageCenter_02082022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/03/RS53605_010_SanFrancisco_TLLinkageCenter_02082022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/03/RS53605_010_SanFrancisco_TLLinkageCenter_02082022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/03/RS53605_010_SanFrancisco_TLLinkageCenter_02082022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/03/RS53605_010_SanFrancisco_TLLinkageCenter_02082022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People wait in line to get into the Tenderloin Linkage Center in San Francisco on Feb. 8, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lurie wouldn’t be the first to declare a state of emergency, which allows the city to bypass certain bureaucratic steps to release and direct urgently needed resources. In December 2021, Mayor London Breed declared an emergency in the Tenderloin, a neighborhood with the highest rate of overdose deaths in the city. It allowed Breed to call in federal law enforcement agencies to help slow the flow of fentanyl into the city and arrest drug dealers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During her emergency order, the city temporarily opened up a safe consumption site in 2022, called the Tenderloin Center, a medically supervised space where drug users could get off the street and get free meals, showers and other basic necessities. More than 300 people visited the center daily, and health professionals reversed 100% of overdoses that occurred on-site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The safe consumption site was intended to be temporary, and the city closed it after about 10 months following public criticism and scrutiny from local businesses who complained about long lines outside extending into United Nations Plaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That same year, San Francisco released an Overdose Prevention Plan that called for opening up replacement centers in more dispersed wellness hubs around the city. However, today, efforts to open such centers remain at a standstill and political willpower to make them happen has waned in anticipation of President Donald Trump’s second term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Budget and Legislative Analyst’s report also recommends that the city open up safe consumption sites and coordinate with law enforcement to help people move safely indoors and reduce drug use in public spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the report also calls for expanding medication-assisted treatment, like buprenorphine, which helps curb cravings and withdrawal symptoms for people struggling with opioid addiction. The city has increased access to this type of therapy by reducing barriers, such as providing medication treatment on demand to residents in permanent supportive housing and expanding the city’s behavioral health pharmacy hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re starting to see more people accept treatment, whether it’s abstinence-based, buprenorphine or methadone,” Mayor London Breed told reporters at a Monday press conference about the city’s overdose response. “The people are out there doing the work and making sure that folks know it’s not a one-size-fits-all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the report, about 75% of Zurich residents with opioid addiction take medication for opioid use disorder. But in San Francisco, only about 25% of people struggling with opioid use disorder are connected to medication-assisted treatments, according to the BLA report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s partly because many people struggling with opioid addiction may not know that the treatment options exist, said San Francisco resident Juliana Gurrola Nuño, who is now part of the city’s public health campaign \u003ca class=\"c-link\" href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12014134/sf-launches-media-campaign-to-promote-addiction-treatment-and-recovery-services\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-stringify-link=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12014134/sf-launches-media-campaign-to-promote-addiction-treatment-and-recovery-services\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">promoting available drug treatment and stories of San Franciscans\u003c/a> who benefitted from recovery services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are services available to help you start your recovery journey, even if it’s just taking the first small step. But not every person struggling with addiction knows about these resources,” she told reporters at the news conference. “I know that when I was in my addiction, I had no idea of any of these services. I want to change that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "san-francisco-overdose-deaths-fall-to-lowest-level-since-pre-pandemic",
"title": "San Francisco Overdose Deaths Fall to Lowest Level Since Pre-Pandemic",
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"headTitle": "San Francisco Overdose Deaths Fall to Lowest Level Since Pre-Pandemic | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/overdose-deaths\">overdose deaths\u003c/a> last month reached a four-year low, falling to a level not seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to preliminary data released Wednesday by the medical examiner’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city reported 39 deaths from accidental overdose in July, the first time the figure has dipped below 40 since January 2020. That represents a 50% year-over-year reduction from last July, when 79 overdoses were reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decline continues a trend seen in the first half of the year, offering some hope after 2023 marked the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972898/2023-was-san-franciscos-deadliest-year-for-drug-overdoses-new-data-confirms\">deadliest year on record for overdoses in San Francisco\u003c/a>, with 810. Through June, the city was still on track to get close to last year’s total, but after July, the annual figure is on pace to be 706 — lower than in 2023 and 2020, the year with the second-highest total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>July was the fourth consecutive month with a year-over-year decline in overdose deaths after June’s total marked the lowest monthly figure since 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year to date, overdose deaths are 15% lower than they were during the same period last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Policy expert Keith Humphreys told KQED last month that the trend was\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11995842/san-francisco-overdose-deaths-are-at-nearly-2-year-low-whats-behind-the-decline\"> likely due to factors reflected in the national decline\u003c/a> of overdose deaths — like fading heroin use and the waning COVID-19 pandemic, which he said likely accelerated some overdose deaths that otherwise could have occurred years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While health officials called the drop in deaths a “hopeful sign,” they said wider access to overdose-preventing medications is still needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12000177\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12000177\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Boxes of Narcan, the overdose prevention drug, at a safe drug use pop-up site created by volunteers with Concerned Public Response in San Francisco on Aug. 31, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“California needs to make more regulatory changes around methadone access in order to make a greater impact locally,” Dr. Grant Colfax, the director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said during a press conference on Wednesday. “We must continue to break down the outdated and cumbersome and, frankly, sometimes ridiculous bureaucratic barriers that make treatment hard to access and to maintain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said that methadone and buprenorphine, synthetic opioids used to treat opioid use disorder, reduce the risk of death by up to 50% in some cases and reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms. Currently, more than 2,500 people are in methadone treatment through the Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[aside postID=news_11997957 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-04-KQED-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Hillary Kunins, the city’s director of behavioral health, said that methadone is the most regulated medication in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The stigma and barriers caused by this overregulation prevent people from entering and staying in treatment,” she said. “Can you imagine requiring a person who has heart disease to be physically present at a special cardiac clinic every day to take their medication? That’s what new methadone patients need to do to get their daily medication.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, methadone can only be dispensed from a licensed opioid treatment program or methadone clinic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New federal policy changes make the treatments more accessible. Patients can initiate methadone treatment via telehealth and receive up to three days’ worth of methadone from a hospital at a time. They can also be prescribed methadone by a nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant and get the treatments from a hospital or other health clinic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assembly Bill 2115, written by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), would align California with the federal regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state must adopt the federal rules before people wanting to start methadone treatment can benefit,” Kunins said. “We implore our California state legislators to pass AB 2115. Making methadone more accessible in California will save lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Gilare Zada contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/overdose-deaths\">overdose deaths\u003c/a> last month reached a four-year low, falling to a level not seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to preliminary data released Wednesday by the medical examiner’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city reported 39 deaths from accidental overdose in July, the first time the figure has dipped below 40 since January 2020. That represents a 50% year-over-year reduction from last July, when 79 overdoses were reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decline continues a trend seen in the first half of the year, offering some hope after 2023 marked the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972898/2023-was-san-franciscos-deadliest-year-for-drug-overdoses-new-data-confirms\">deadliest year on record for overdoses in San Francisco\u003c/a>, with 810. Through June, the city was still on track to get close to last year’s total, but after July, the annual figure is on pace to be 706 — lower than in 2023 and 2020, the year with the second-highest total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>July was the fourth consecutive month with a year-over-year decline in overdose deaths after June’s total marked the lowest monthly figure since 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year to date, overdose deaths are 15% lower than they were during the same period last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Policy expert Keith Humphreys told KQED last month that the trend was\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11995842/san-francisco-overdose-deaths-are-at-nearly-2-year-low-whats-behind-the-decline\"> likely due to factors reflected in the national decline\u003c/a> of overdose deaths — like fading heroin use and the waning COVID-19 pandemic, which he said likely accelerated some overdose deaths that otherwise could have occurred years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While health officials called the drop in deaths a “hopeful sign,” they said wider access to overdose-preventing medications is still needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12000177\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12000177\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Boxes of Narcan, the overdose prevention drug, at a safe drug use pop-up site created by volunteers with Concerned Public Response in San Francisco on Aug. 31, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“California needs to make more regulatory changes around methadone access in order to make a greater impact locally,” Dr. Grant Colfax, the director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said during a press conference on Wednesday. “We must continue to break down the outdated and cumbersome and, frankly, sometimes ridiculous bureaucratic barriers that make treatment hard to access and to maintain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said that methadone and buprenorphine, synthetic opioids used to treat opioid use disorder, reduce the risk of death by up to 50% in some cases and reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms. Currently, more than 2,500 people are in methadone treatment through the Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Hillary Kunins, the city’s director of behavioral health, said that methadone is the most regulated medication in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The stigma and barriers caused by this overregulation prevent people from entering and staying in treatment,” she said. “Can you imagine requiring a person who has heart disease to be physically present at a special cardiac clinic every day to take their medication? That’s what new methadone patients need to do to get their daily medication.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, methadone can only be dispensed from a licensed opioid treatment program or methadone clinic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New federal policy changes make the treatments more accessible. Patients can initiate methadone treatment via telehealth and receive up to three days’ worth of methadone from a hospital at a time. They can also be prescribed methadone by a nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant and get the treatments from a hospital or other health clinic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assembly Bill 2115, written by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), would align California with the federal regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state must adopt the federal rules before people wanting to start methadone treatment can benefit,” Kunins said. “We implore our California state legislators to pass AB 2115. Making methadone more accessible in California will save lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Gilare Zada contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco saw its lowest monthly number of fatal overdoses in nearly two years in June, officials announced Monday, offering slight good news as the city \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11991538/san-francisco-attributes-lower-drug-deaths-to-microdosing-addiction-medication\">battles a severe overdose crisis\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to preliminary data \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2024-07/2024%2007_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf\">from the medical examiner’s office\u003c/a>, 48 people died of accidental overdoses last month. That’s down more than 15% from 57 deaths in June of last year, and it represents the lowest monthly total since July 2022, when the city reported 43 overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data also show a decrease in overdose deaths in the first half of the year compared to 2023. While public health officials say the “heartening” numbers could result from citywide programs, a policy expert said wider drug use trends are likely making the difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Hillary Kunins, the director of behavioral health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, spoke about the city’s increased access in recent months to the overdose-reversing medicine Narcan, as well as more street care teams and both telehealth and in-person treatment while announcing the June overdose data on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert and professor at Stanford University, believes that the downward trend likely has little to do with citywide policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s certainly some sensible things going on — the biggest one: making anti-overdose medication widely available to as many people as possible,” he told KQED. “We’ve been doing that for years at a pretty high level — the good that did was baked in already, so I don’t think that would explain a change like this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Humphreys said, the trajectory mirrors \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2024/20240515.htm#:~:text=Provisional%20data%20from%20CDC's%20National,111%2C029%20deaths%20estimated%20in%202022.\">national data\u003c/a> and likely suggests that more people who are using fentanyl are doing so knowingly rather than suffering “surprise overdoses” when they thought they were using another drug.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He pointed to a spike in overdose deaths that began around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the city saw a then-record 726 deaths, according to data from the office of the medical examiner. That number dipped a bit in 2021 and 2022, though overdoses remained above pre-pandemic levels, and last year surpassed 2020 as the city’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972898/2023-was-san-franciscos-deadliest-year-for-drug-overdoses-new-data-confirms\">deadliest year\u003c/a> on record with 810 deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"SF drug overdose deaths, Jan.-June 2023/2024 \" aria-label=\"Grouped Columns\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-tGJps\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/tGJps/1/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: none;\" width=\"800\" height=\"547\" data-external=\"1\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, there have been 374 overdose-related deaths in 2024. The figure is slightly lower than the number of deaths recorded during the same period in 2023, but it is still on track to come close to the year’s staggering total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humphreys said that the small reduction was not surprising, given that pandemic restrictions — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11973108/how-long-to-isolate-with-covid-in-2024-california-now-says-that-depends-on-symptoms\">though not COVID-19 infections\u003c/a> — have all but completely wound down. Nationwide, annual overdose deaths decreased last year for the first time since 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“During the pandemic, we had increases [in overdoses] beyond anything we’ve had in the history of our country,” he said. “Which I think said a lot about the impact of isolation, stress, the destruction of social opportunities, the loss of jobs, all those kinds of things. Now, we’re getting the other side of it … the restoration of all those things is going to be good for human health,” including drug use and overdose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kunins agreed that the pandemic led to a spike in overdose deaths and “worsened health outcomes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hopeful trajectory is also likely a reflection of heroin’s diminished presence in the illicit drug market, according to Humphreys. High numbers of heroin users suffered accidental fentanyl overdoses in recent years, according to Humphreys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When heroin is completely gone, people will know that what is being bought and sold is fentanyl,” he told KQED, noting that San Francisco is not at that point yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a lot of surprise overdoses three years ago in San Francisco, a lot of people who didn’t think they were going to be exposed but were. Now we’re getting to a point where almost no one is surprised, and that should reduce overdoses.”[aside postID=news_11991538 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/GettyImages-955608454-1020x680.jpg']Fentanyl entered the drug market on the West Coast just before the pandemic, Kunins said. In the following years, heroin has made up a shrinking portion of overall overdose deaths. In 2020, 93 of the overdoses reported by the city involved heroin, nearly 12%. So far, in 2024, 20 overdoses included opioids, making up only about 5% of the total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the slight downturn in overall deaths, Kunins said overdose “is very much a crisis in our city and our country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How officials want to handle the crisis is expected to play a large role in city elections this fall. Three leading mayoral candidates — Mayor London Breed, former Mayor Mark Farrell and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie — have all supported tougher policies surrounding drug use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farrell previously called for California National Guard members to be deployed in highly trafficked areas, like the Tenderloin and SoMa neighborhoods, and Lurie has expressed support for compelling drug users to enter treatment. In March, Breed placed two measures on citywide ballots expanding police powers and increasing screening and treatment requirements for drug users receiving welfare and touted increased drug-related arrests in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Humphreys and Kunins cautioned against implementing harsher policies. Humphreys said bringing in outside law enforcement likely wouldn’t be effective, while Kunins said that DPH’s priority is expanding treatment, not limiting it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of the regulations and structures surrounding access to medications for addiction treatment that are at the federal and state level really serve to limit access to treatments,” Kunins said. “Our goal is to decrease barriers into care, make it easier and more appealing for people to get into treatment, and to reach our overall goal of saving lives and supporting people to get into recovery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco saw its lowest monthly number of fatal overdoses in nearly two years in June, officials announced Monday, offering slight good news as the city \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11991538/san-francisco-attributes-lower-drug-deaths-to-microdosing-addiction-medication\">battles a severe overdose crisis\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to preliminary data \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2024-07/2024%2007_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf\">from the medical examiner’s office\u003c/a>, 48 people died of accidental overdoses last month. That’s down more than 15% from 57 deaths in June of last year, and it represents the lowest monthly total since July 2022, when the city reported 43 overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data also show a decrease in overdose deaths in the first half of the year compared to 2023. While public health officials say the “heartening” numbers could result from citywide programs, a policy expert said wider drug use trends are likely making the difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Hillary Kunins, the director of behavioral health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, spoke about the city’s increased access in recent months to the overdose-reversing medicine Narcan, as well as more street care teams and both telehealth and in-person treatment while announcing the June overdose data on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert and professor at Stanford University, believes that the downward trend likely has little to do with citywide policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s certainly some sensible things going on — the biggest one: making anti-overdose medication widely available to as many people as possible,” he told KQED. “We’ve been doing that for years at a pretty high level — the good that did was baked in already, so I don’t think that would explain a change like this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Humphreys said, the trajectory mirrors \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2024/20240515.htm#:~:text=Provisional%20data%20from%20CDC's%20National,111%2C029%20deaths%20estimated%20in%202022.\">national data\u003c/a> and likely suggests that more people who are using fentanyl are doing so knowingly rather than suffering “surprise overdoses” when they thought they were using another drug.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He pointed to a spike in overdose deaths that began around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the city saw a then-record 726 deaths, according to data from the office of the medical examiner. That number dipped a bit in 2021 and 2022, though overdoses remained above pre-pandemic levels, and last year surpassed 2020 as the city’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972898/2023-was-san-franciscos-deadliest-year-for-drug-overdoses-new-data-confirms\">deadliest year\u003c/a> on record with 810 deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"SF drug overdose deaths, Jan.-June 2023/2024 \" aria-label=\"Grouped Columns\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-tGJps\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/tGJps/1/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: none;\" width=\"800\" height=\"547\" data-external=\"1\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, there have been 374 overdose-related deaths in 2024. The figure is slightly lower than the number of deaths recorded during the same period in 2023, but it is still on track to come close to the year’s staggering total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humphreys said that the small reduction was not surprising, given that pandemic restrictions — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11973108/how-long-to-isolate-with-covid-in-2024-california-now-says-that-depends-on-symptoms\">though not COVID-19 infections\u003c/a> — have all but completely wound down. Nationwide, annual overdose deaths decreased last year for the first time since 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“During the pandemic, we had increases [in overdoses] beyond anything we’ve had in the history of our country,” he said. “Which I think said a lot about the impact of isolation, stress, the destruction of social opportunities, the loss of jobs, all those kinds of things. Now, we’re getting the other side of it … the restoration of all those things is going to be good for human health,” including drug use and overdose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kunins agreed that the pandemic led to a spike in overdose deaths and “worsened health outcomes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hopeful trajectory is also likely a reflection of heroin’s diminished presence in the illicit drug market, according to Humphreys. High numbers of heroin users suffered accidental fentanyl overdoses in recent years, according to Humphreys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When heroin is completely gone, people will know that what is being bought and sold is fentanyl,” he told KQED, noting that San Francisco is not at that point yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a lot of surprise overdoses three years ago in San Francisco, a lot of people who didn’t think they were going to be exposed but were. Now we’re getting to a point where almost no one is surprised, and that should reduce overdoses.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Fentanyl entered the drug market on the West Coast just before the pandemic, Kunins said. In the following years, heroin has made up a shrinking portion of overall overdose deaths. In 2020, 93 of the overdoses reported by the city involved heroin, nearly 12%. So far, in 2024, 20 overdoses included opioids, making up only about 5% of the total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the slight downturn in overall deaths, Kunins said overdose “is very much a crisis in our city and our country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How officials want to handle the crisis is expected to play a large role in city elections this fall. Three leading mayoral candidates — Mayor London Breed, former Mayor Mark Farrell and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie — have all supported tougher policies surrounding drug use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farrell previously called for California National Guard members to be deployed in highly trafficked areas, like the Tenderloin and SoMa neighborhoods, and Lurie has expressed support for compelling drug users to enter treatment. In March, Breed placed two measures on citywide ballots expanding police powers and increasing screening and treatment requirements for drug users receiving welfare and touted increased drug-related arrests in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Humphreys and Kunins cautioned against implementing harsher policies. Humphreys said bringing in outside law enforcement likely wouldn’t be effective, while Kunins said that DPH’s priority is expanding treatment, not limiting it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of the regulations and structures surrounding access to medications for addiction treatment that are at the federal and state level really serve to limit access to treatments,” Kunins said. “Our goal is to decrease barriers into care, make it easier and more appealing for people to get into treatment, and to reach our overall goal of saving lives and supporting people to get into recovery.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Last month, 66 people died from an accidental drug overdose in San Francisco, and city health officials say that the majority of those deaths are from the potent opioid painkiller fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Department of Public Health said 73 people died of an accidental overdose last May, so there’s about a 10% decrease in deaths. Drug overdoses in the city peaked in January at 71, followed by 63 in February, 68 in March and 56 in April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2024-06/2024%2006_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf\">latest numbers (PDF)\u003c/a> follow an overall trend in the city being able to help prevent unnecessary drug-related deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to be sure that the public knows that highly effective and lifesaving medications are available in San Francisco to treat people with addiction to fentanyl and other opioids,” said Dr. Hillary Kunins, director of behavioral health services and Mental Health SF. “At DPH, our priority is to increase the accessibility of substance use treatment services so that more people can enter treatment and regain their lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health officials attribute part of their lifesaving measures to a novel approach they’ve pioneered: microdosing buprenorphine, a medication proven to help people quit opioid painkillers, out of community hospitals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joanna Eveland said patients addicted to opioids can begin microdosing buprenorphine with as little as one milligram a day to help them overcome the intense cravings and painful withdrawal symptoms that occur when somebody physically dependent on opioids stops using them suddenly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The challenge with buprenorphine is first getting started on the medication. If you start too early, while you still have another strong opioid in your system, like fentanyl, you can actually experience withdrawal symptoms,” Eveland said. “My patients who are taking buprenorphine report that they feel normal and stable. They can go back to work. They can take care of their families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco Department of Public Health researchers published their findings on custom-tailored microdosing buprenorphine treatments — which they call the “Howard Street Method” — last year in the \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37579105/\">journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their research found that 27 people were treated with the Howard Street Method, all but one picked up their prescription for buprenorphine and 14 completed the program. Eighty percent of the people completing the program reported no symptoms of withdrawal and only three reported mild symptoms. A third ceased all opioid use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overall, researchers concluded the microdosing Howard Street Method was a “viable intervention for starting buprenorphine treatment and a promising alternative method for buprenorphine initiation in an under-resourced, safety-net population of people using fentanyl.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11987358,news_11986128,news_11989112\"]Along with the Howard Street Method, the city has instituted several programs to help get drug users the help they need where they are. This includes the Night Navigation Team, which operates from 8 p.m. to midnight to help set up telehealth consultations with on-call doctors who can write prescriptions for drugs that can help reduce withdrawal symptoms that can be picked up at a 24-hour pharmacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When they find somebody who’s ready and motivated to start treatment, start medication linked to other services, they’re able to get them on the phone with the doctor right in that moment, who does a visit with the person by phone again, can send a prescription that very night, if that’s what the person wants or talk about the plan for starting methadone the next day,” Eveland said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kunins said from March through May, city staff conducted approximately 440 in the field, nighttime telehealth visits for people who use fentanyl and other opioids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city also has programs to help the unhoused find hotel rooms or other safe places to stay so they can begin their treatment. City officials say 78% of those who are offered medication via telehealth meetings and given a place to stay end up filling their prescriptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anyone in need of mental health or substance use services is encouraged to call San Francisco’s Behavior Health line at 888-246-3333.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Last month, 66 people died from an accidental drug overdose in San Francisco, and city health officials say that the majority of those deaths are from the potent opioid painkiller fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Department of Public Health said 73 people died of an accidental overdose last May, so there’s about a 10% decrease in deaths. Drug overdoses in the city peaked in January at 71, followed by 63 in February, 68 in March and 56 in April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2024-06/2024%2006_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf\">latest numbers (PDF)\u003c/a> follow an overall trend in the city being able to help prevent unnecessary drug-related deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to be sure that the public knows that highly effective and lifesaving medications are available in San Francisco to treat people with addiction to fentanyl and other opioids,” said Dr. Hillary Kunins, director of behavioral health services and Mental Health SF. “At DPH, our priority is to increase the accessibility of substance use treatment services so that more people can enter treatment and regain their lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health officials attribute part of their lifesaving measures to a novel approach they’ve pioneered: microdosing buprenorphine, a medication proven to help people quit opioid painkillers, out of community hospitals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joanna Eveland said patients addicted to opioids can begin microdosing buprenorphine with as little as one milligram a day to help them overcome the intense cravings and painful withdrawal symptoms that occur when somebody physically dependent on opioids stops using them suddenly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The challenge with buprenorphine is first getting started on the medication. If you start too early, while you still have another strong opioid in your system, like fentanyl, you can actually experience withdrawal symptoms,” Eveland said. “My patients who are taking buprenorphine report that they feel normal and stable. They can go back to work. They can take care of their families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco Department of Public Health researchers published their findings on custom-tailored microdosing buprenorphine treatments — which they call the “Howard Street Method” — last year in the \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37579105/\">journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their research found that 27 people were treated with the Howard Street Method, all but one picked up their prescription for buprenorphine and 14 completed the program. Eighty percent of the people completing the program reported no symptoms of withdrawal and only three reported mild symptoms. A third ceased all opioid use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overall, researchers concluded the microdosing Howard Street Method was a “viable intervention for starting buprenorphine treatment and a promising alternative method for buprenorphine initiation in an under-resourced, safety-net population of people using fentanyl.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Along with the Howard Street Method, the city has instituted several programs to help get drug users the help they need where they are. This includes the Night Navigation Team, which operates from 8 p.m. to midnight to help set up telehealth consultations with on-call doctors who can write prescriptions for drugs that can help reduce withdrawal symptoms that can be picked up at a 24-hour pharmacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When they find somebody who’s ready and motivated to start treatment, start medication linked to other services, they’re able to get them on the phone with the doctor right in that moment, who does a visit with the person by phone again, can send a prescription that very night, if that’s what the person wants or talk about the plan for starting methadone the next day,” Eveland said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kunins said from March through May, city staff conducted approximately 440 in the field, nighttime telehealth visits for people who use fentanyl and other opioids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city also has programs to help the unhoused find hotel rooms or other safe places to stay so they can begin their treatment. City officials say 78% of those who are offered medication via telehealth meetings and given a place to stay end up filling their prescriptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anyone in need of mental health or substance use services is encouraged to call San Francisco’s Behavior Health line at 888-246-3333.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>One year into San Francisco’s push to dismantle open-air drug markets, authorities are touting thousands of arrests by the law enforcement campaign; last week alone, police announced they had arrested 10 people in a single-day operation in the Tenderloin, as well as the arrests days earlier of two brothers suspected of trafficking drugs in the area and carrying 6 kilograms of fentanyl, among other substances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, with people dying of overdoses near a record pace and neighbors’ complaints of a pervasive drug trade, some policy experts have questioned whether San Francisco is taking the right approach to the crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor London Breed launched the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, a centralized hub for local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to disrupt drug dealing and public drug use in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, in May 2023. Last week, on its first anniversary, Breed’s office released a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/drug-market-agency-coordination-center\">public data dashboard\u003c/a> showing that in the first year of the crackdown, law enforcement officials made more than 3,000 arrests and seized nearly 200 kilos of narcotics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of those arrests, 1,008 people were suspected of dealing drugs, 1,284 were suspected of using drugs, and 858 people had outstanding warrants. The top two drugs seized by weight were fentanyl, at more than 89 kilos, and methamphetamine, at 48 kilos. In a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/news/san-francisco-dmacc-marks-one-year-milestone-200-kilos-narcotics-seized-and-3000-arrests\">statement announcing the first-year data\u003c/a>, city officials called those “significant results.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The partnerships we put in place are getting fentanyl out of our neighborhoods, and with new technology being deployed and more officers joining our ranks, our efforts will only grow stronger over the coming year,” Breed said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some residents and policy experts, however, said the coordination center has had little effect on the neighborhoods’ struggle to curtail drug dealing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Randy Shaw, co-founder of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, said that while arrests and seizures have been centralized around United Nations Plaza, the area’s drug market is still pervasive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At a place like 7th and Market, which I’ve written about a lot and which has gotten a lot of attention on social media, there’s still 50 drug dealers and drug users out there every night,” Shaw said. “Why is that still happening?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the two and a half years since Breed declared a state of emergency in the Tenderloin related to the fentanyl crisis, San Francisco has recorded its highest number of overdose deaths in one year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972898/2023-was-san-franciscos-deadliest-year-for-drug-overdoses-new-data-confirms\">totaling 810 in 2023\u003c/a>. This year, the city is on track to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2024-05/2024%2005_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf\">surpass 770 overdose deaths\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the city’s efforts, the crisis on the streets of the Tenderloin remains, Shaw said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We created an emergency coordination center, and a year later, the activities that exist there remain higher than any other neighborhood would tolerate and would be allowed to continue,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11982333\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11982333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240405-District5BOSRedistricting-006-BL_qut.jpg\" alt=\"Two men sitting on the sidewalk while another man on the left wearing a neon yellow and orange jacket stands near parked cars on the street.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240405-District5BOSRedistricting-006-BL_qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240405-District5BOSRedistricting-006-BL_qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240405-District5BOSRedistricting-006-BL_qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240405-District5BOSRedistricting-006-BL_qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240405-District5BOSRedistricting-006-BL_qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People sit on the sidewalk in the Tenderloin neighborhood, a part of the 5th Supervisorial District, in San Francisco on April 5, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert and professor of psychology at Stanford University, said he believes this is because San Francisco’s efforts are too focused on arresting drug dealers and users, which isn’t necessarily aligned with residents’ goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can arrest individual dealers forever, but your goal, I think, is to suppress the open-air market, and that is not done by individual arrests,” Humphreys told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Humphreys, data shows that closing drug markets takes collaboration not only among law enforcement agencies but with social service providers and prosecutors as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coordination center works with city agencies, including the Department of Public Health and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, to connect people with treatment and shelter options, city officials said in a statement. However, in contrast to the arrests dashboard, no data was available on the number of people who used those resources, and the mayor’s office did not respond to a request for the information at the time of publication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=science_1993048,news_11987962,news_11982329,news_11972898 label='related coverage']Another point that could work against the city’s efforts is the discrepancy between the numbers of arrests and convictions in the data, Humphreys said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you don’t have [convictions], the arrests are counterproductive because if they don’t result in convictions, it teaches people being arrested is no big deal,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of May 25, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said it had been presented with 394 felony narcotics cases this year and filed 344 of them. Officers with the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center have made 1,159 narcotics arrests since January, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/drug-market-agency-coordination-center\">according to SFPD data\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As officials tout the number of arrests and the amount of drugs confiscated, Humphreys said the city should track other metrics instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I would like to see on their dashboard is, ‘How many sidewalks can you walk down without seeing a dealer or users?’ You can assess that very easily,” Humphreys said. “I think if they looked at that, my suspicion would be that while the arrests went up, that number stayed the same. When you gather that data, you think, ‘We need to think of a different strategy.’”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Authorities are touting over 3,000 arrests in the first year of a law enforcement campaign against open-air drug markets, but some policy experts have questioned whether that’s the right approach.",
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"title": "Can San Francisco Arrest Its Way Out of Tenderloin’s Drug Crisis? | KQED",
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"headline": "Can San Francisco Arrest Its Way Out of Tenderloin’s Drug Crisis?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>One year into San Francisco’s push to dismantle open-air drug markets, authorities are touting thousands of arrests by the law enforcement campaign; last week alone, police announced they had arrested 10 people in a single-day operation in the Tenderloin, as well as the arrests days earlier of two brothers suspected of trafficking drugs in the area and carrying 6 kilograms of fentanyl, among other substances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, with people dying of overdoses near a record pace and neighbors’ complaints of a pervasive drug trade, some policy experts have questioned whether San Francisco is taking the right approach to the crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor London Breed launched the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, a centralized hub for local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to disrupt drug dealing and public drug use in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, in May 2023. Last week, on its first anniversary, Breed’s office released a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/drug-market-agency-coordination-center\">public data dashboard\u003c/a> showing that in the first year of the crackdown, law enforcement officials made more than 3,000 arrests and seized nearly 200 kilos of narcotics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of those arrests, 1,008 people were suspected of dealing drugs, 1,284 were suspected of using drugs, and 858 people had outstanding warrants. The top two drugs seized by weight were fentanyl, at more than 89 kilos, and methamphetamine, at 48 kilos. In a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/news/san-francisco-dmacc-marks-one-year-milestone-200-kilos-narcotics-seized-and-3000-arrests\">statement announcing the first-year data\u003c/a>, city officials called those “significant results.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The partnerships we put in place are getting fentanyl out of our neighborhoods, and with new technology being deployed and more officers joining our ranks, our efforts will only grow stronger over the coming year,” Breed said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some residents and policy experts, however, said the coordination center has had little effect on the neighborhoods’ struggle to curtail drug dealing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Randy Shaw, co-founder of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, said that while arrests and seizures have been centralized around United Nations Plaza, the area’s drug market is still pervasive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At a place like 7th and Market, which I’ve written about a lot and which has gotten a lot of attention on social media, there’s still 50 drug dealers and drug users out there every night,” Shaw said. “Why is that still happening?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the two and a half years since Breed declared a state of emergency in the Tenderloin related to the fentanyl crisis, San Francisco has recorded its highest number of overdose deaths in one year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972898/2023-was-san-franciscos-deadliest-year-for-drug-overdoses-new-data-confirms\">totaling 810 in 2023\u003c/a>. This year, the city is on track to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2024-05/2024%2005_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf\">surpass 770 overdose deaths\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the city’s efforts, the crisis on the streets of the Tenderloin remains, Shaw said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We created an emergency coordination center, and a year later, the activities that exist there remain higher than any other neighborhood would tolerate and would be allowed to continue,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11982333\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11982333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240405-District5BOSRedistricting-006-BL_qut.jpg\" alt=\"Two men sitting on the sidewalk while another man on the left wearing a neon yellow and orange jacket stands near parked cars on the street.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240405-District5BOSRedistricting-006-BL_qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240405-District5BOSRedistricting-006-BL_qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240405-District5BOSRedistricting-006-BL_qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240405-District5BOSRedistricting-006-BL_qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240405-District5BOSRedistricting-006-BL_qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People sit on the sidewalk in the Tenderloin neighborhood, a part of the 5th Supervisorial District, in San Francisco on April 5, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert and professor of psychology at Stanford University, said he believes this is because San Francisco’s efforts are too focused on arresting drug dealers and users, which isn’t necessarily aligned with residents’ goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can arrest individual dealers forever, but your goal, I think, is to suppress the open-air market, and that is not done by individual arrests,” Humphreys told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Humphreys, data shows that closing drug markets takes collaboration not only among law enforcement agencies but with social service providers and prosecutors as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coordination center works with city agencies, including the Department of Public Health and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, to connect people with treatment and shelter options, city officials said in a statement. However, in contrast to the arrests dashboard, no data was available on the number of people who used those resources, and the mayor’s office did not respond to a request for the information at the time of publication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Another point that could work against the city’s efforts is the discrepancy between the numbers of arrests and convictions in the data, Humphreys said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you don’t have [convictions], the arrests are counterproductive because if they don’t result in convictions, it teaches people being arrested is no big deal,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of May 25, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said it had been presented with 394 felony narcotics cases this year and filed 344 of them. Officers with the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center have made 1,159 narcotics arrests since January, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/drug-market-agency-coordination-center\">according to SFPD data\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As officials tout the number of arrests and the amount of drugs confiscated, Humphreys said the city should track other metrics instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I would like to see on their dashboard is, ‘How many sidewalks can you walk down without seeing a dealer or users?’ You can assess that very easily,” Humphreys said. “I think if they looked at that, my suspicion would be that while the arrests went up, that number stayed the same. When you gather that data, you think, ‘We need to think of a different strategy.’”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "san-francisco-doctors-call-for-urgent-public-health-response-to-overdose-epidemic",
"title": "San Francisco Doctors Call for Urgent Public Health Response to Overdose Epidemic",
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"headTitle": "San Francisco Doctors Call for Urgent Public Health Response to Overdose Epidemic | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>About a dozen physicians and overdose prevention advocates rallied on the steps of San Francisco’s Chief Medical Examiner’s office on Tuesday, demanding that the government do more to address the city’s overdose epidemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday’s action comes as San Francisco continues to face a surge in overdose deaths, largely driven by fentanyl, an opioid about 50 times stronger than heroin. More than \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972898/2023-was-san-franciscos-deadliest-year-for-drug-overdoses-new-data-confirms\">3,000 people have died from accidental drug overdose\u003c/a> in San Francisco since January 2020, including more than 200 in 2024 alone, according to data from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/resource/2020/ocme-accidental-overdose-reports?_gl=1*63hju*_ga*MTk2Mzg5NzE0NS4xNzE0Njc0NTIx*_ga_BT9NDE0NFC*MTcxNTcwNTY1MS40LjAuMTcxNTcwNTY1MS4wLjAuMA..*_ga_63SCS846YP*MTcxNTcwNTY1MS40LjAuMTcxNTcwNTY1MS4wLjAuMA..\">Office of the Chief Medical Examiner\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Three thousand deaths is an inconvenient truth. This highlights 3,000 failures and highlights how we are not listening to policy experts and doctors,” said Dr. Dan Ciccarone, who specializes in addiction medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, outside the medical examiner’s office near the Hunters Point neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City leaders have rolled out several different interventions targeting the crisis in recent years. Efforts included \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11915870/inside-san-franciscos-tenderloin-center-that-serves-hundreds-every-day\">a short-lived safe consumption site\u003c/a> in 2022, along with increased distribution of drug test strips and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11944267/newsom-doubles-down-on-naloxone-distribution-in-new-master-plan-to-curb-overdose-deaths\">opioid overdose reversal medicine called Narcan\u003c/a>. The city has also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11976655/sf-close-to-goal-of-400-new-residential-treatment-beds-but-obstacles-to-care-remain\">opened additional behavioral health beds\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11970663/san-franciscos-hope-for-expanding-supportive-housing-treasure-island\">supportive step-down housing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts on Tuesday pointed to how overdose rates in San Francisco rapidly increased shortly following the closure of the Tenderloin Center, the drop-in social services center and safe consumption site that operated in Civic Center for nearly 10 months. There, more than 300 overdoses were reversed, and no deaths occurred.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact that the Tenderloin Center closed after nine months is a crying shame,” Ciccarone said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added that a similar site in Melbourne, Australia, faced similar pushback from conservatives and business leaders. However, it became an accepted and embraced approach after five years of working with the community, police and other stakeholders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parallel to those public health interventions have been efforts to ramp up policing and other punitive approaches to the illicit drug economy. In 2023, San Francisco Police arrested more than 900 people for drug dealing in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods — double the year prior — according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/news/san-francisco-issues-six-month-update-operation-dismantle-open-air-drug-markets#:~:text=In%202023%20overall%2C%20SFPD%20officers,year%20to%20date%20since%202018.\">city data\u003c/a>. SFPD also made nearly 800 arrests for public intoxication and drug use in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11986151\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11986151\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Ako Jacintho, director of addiction medicine at HealthRight360, speaks at an overdose prevention rally in front of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on May 14, 2024. \u003ccite>(Sydney Johnson/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In addition, Mayor London Breed and Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948062/newsom-taps-chp-national-guard-to-fight-san-franciscos-fentanyl-crisis\">sent the National Guard to assist local police\u003c/a> and the District Attorney in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11965813/sf-wants-to-charge-drug-dealers-with-homicide-but-could-it-lead-to-more-overdose-deaths\">investigating opioid-related deaths as homicide\u003c/a> cases last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are bringing together local, state and federal law enforcement to coordinate and hold those breaking the law in our city accountable,” Breed said in a press statement about the 2023 blitz. “We want people who need support to get help, and we will continue to offer people second chances, but San Francisco can’t be a place where anything goes and allow harmful behaviors to become the norm.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But advocates say what’s needed are more public health-based strategies, like low-barrier treatment, affordable and supportive housing, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959803/in-act-of-civil-disobedience-activists-set-up-safe-drug-consumption-site-in-san-francisco\">safe consumption services\u003c/a>, rather than police crackdowns. On Tuesday, several said that the city’s law enforcement push has had \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948421/newsoms-plan-to-crack-down-on-fentanyl-in-san-francisco-could-cause-more-harm-than-good-some-addiction-experts-say\">unintended consequences that can exacerbate overdose deaths\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are putting people at risk, and this is a policy decision,” said Fabian Fernandez, a medical student at UCSF, at Tuesday’s rally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11986152\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11986152\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doctors, attorneys and community advocates rally outside the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, calling for more public health approaches to rising overdose rates on May 14, 2024. \u003ccite>(Sydney Johnson/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2955973/\">Studies\u003c/a> have shown that a person’s chances of overdose can \u003ca href=\"https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/145946/cdc_145946_DS1.pdf\">significantly increase\u003c/a> following an arrest and release from jail. Other critics of the city’s more aggressive law enforcement approaches say it can disrupt markets and cause some users to seek drugs elsewhere, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/07/05/1183172045/fentanyl-drug-busts-overdose-police-dealers-trafficking-indianapolis\">creating opportunities for riskier use\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speakers on Tuesday said increasing supportive housing, treatment and services like safe consumption sites have cost-savings potential, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One study estimates \u003ca href=\"https://www.rti.org/impact/cost-benefit-analysis-opening-safe-consumption-site-san-francisco\">that San Francisco could save a minimum of $2.6 million\u003c/a> if it were to offer places where people could use drugs more safely and out of the public, as opposed to downstream interventions like jail and emergency services. A 2023 study looking at the wider community impacts of a safe consumption site in New York City also found that\u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2811766\"> the facility did \u003cem>not \u003c/em>contribute\u003c/a> to increased drug use or crime in the surrounding area. Instead, it offered a place for people to use drugs out of the public way more safely. [aside postID=news_11972898 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-06-qut-1020x680.jpg']Organizations calling for more public health responses at the demonstration included the \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/vJomCo2OEkuvQVVXI1Iulr?domain=youngwomenfree.org\">Young Women’s Freedom Center\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/SI2yCpYzGliA700zsDx1YR?domain=drugpolicy.org\">Drug Policy Alliance\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/ZEFZCqx2JmsXVyyOfQhNrY?domain=sfpublicdefender.org\">SF Public Defender’s Office\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/4p29CrkYKnf2WRRACyI8TN?domain=harmreductiontherapy.org\">The Harm Reduction Therapy Center\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/2sV5Cv2jOruARnnWsot4PT?domain=healthright360.org\">HealthRIGHT 360\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/TlpFCwpkPvsy2EELu8aQ0V?domain=donoharmcoalition.org\">Do No Harm Coalition\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, politics has thwarted efforts to open a safe consumption site and other approaches that public health experts call for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, Newsom vetoed a bill that would have allowed San Francisco and two other major California cities to pilot such a facility. The initiative was part of the overdose response strategy in more than 200 places around the globe, including France, Denmark, Canada, Australia, Switzerland and others. In these facilities, people can use drugs and trained staff can reverse an overdose if it occurs while also connecting people with other health and social services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Government and community leaders have tried to prop up a safe consumption site using private funding as well as funds from the city’s multimillion-dollar legal victory against opioid manufacturers, which states like Rhode Island have done. But those efforts have largely stalled in San Francisco, even as overdose rates have continued at epidemic levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In San Francisco, we make it extremely difficult for people who are struggling with substance use disorder to find their way out and find their paths to recovery,” said Laura Thomas, senior director of HIV and Harm Reduction at the San Francisco Aids Foundation, during the rally. “We put so many barriers in people’s way, from needing to have an ID to needing to show up at a certain time of day, waitlists and restrictions … We can do better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "More than 3,000 people have died of a drug overdose in San Francisco since January 2020.",
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"title": "San Francisco Doctors Call for Urgent Public Health Response to Overdose Epidemic | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>About a dozen physicians and overdose prevention advocates rallied on the steps of San Francisco’s Chief Medical Examiner’s office on Tuesday, demanding that the government do more to address the city’s overdose epidemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday’s action comes as San Francisco continues to face a surge in overdose deaths, largely driven by fentanyl, an opioid about 50 times stronger than heroin. More than \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972898/2023-was-san-franciscos-deadliest-year-for-drug-overdoses-new-data-confirms\">3,000 people have died from accidental drug overdose\u003c/a> in San Francisco since January 2020, including more than 200 in 2024 alone, according to data from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/resource/2020/ocme-accidental-overdose-reports?_gl=1*63hju*_ga*MTk2Mzg5NzE0NS4xNzE0Njc0NTIx*_ga_BT9NDE0NFC*MTcxNTcwNTY1MS40LjAuMTcxNTcwNTY1MS4wLjAuMA..*_ga_63SCS846YP*MTcxNTcwNTY1MS40LjAuMTcxNTcwNTY1MS4wLjAuMA..\">Office of the Chief Medical Examiner\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Three thousand deaths is an inconvenient truth. This highlights 3,000 failures and highlights how we are not listening to policy experts and doctors,” said Dr. Dan Ciccarone, who specializes in addiction medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, outside the medical examiner’s office near the Hunters Point neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City leaders have rolled out several different interventions targeting the crisis in recent years. Efforts included \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11915870/inside-san-franciscos-tenderloin-center-that-serves-hundreds-every-day\">a short-lived safe consumption site\u003c/a> in 2022, along with increased distribution of drug test strips and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11944267/newsom-doubles-down-on-naloxone-distribution-in-new-master-plan-to-curb-overdose-deaths\">opioid overdose reversal medicine called Narcan\u003c/a>. The city has also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11976655/sf-close-to-goal-of-400-new-residential-treatment-beds-but-obstacles-to-care-remain\">opened additional behavioral health beds\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11970663/san-franciscos-hope-for-expanding-supportive-housing-treasure-island\">supportive step-down housing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts on Tuesday pointed to how overdose rates in San Francisco rapidly increased shortly following the closure of the Tenderloin Center, the drop-in social services center and safe consumption site that operated in Civic Center for nearly 10 months. There, more than 300 overdoses were reversed, and no deaths occurred.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact that the Tenderloin Center closed after nine months is a crying shame,” Ciccarone said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added that a similar site in Melbourne, Australia, faced similar pushback from conservatives and business leaders. However, it became an accepted and embraced approach after five years of working with the community, police and other stakeholders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parallel to those public health interventions have been efforts to ramp up policing and other punitive approaches to the illicit drug economy. In 2023, San Francisco Police arrested more than 900 people for drug dealing in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods — double the year prior — according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/news/san-francisco-issues-six-month-update-operation-dismantle-open-air-drug-markets#:~:text=In%202023%20overall%2C%20SFPD%20officers,year%20to%20date%20since%202018.\">city data\u003c/a>. SFPD also made nearly 800 arrests for public intoxication and drug use in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11986151\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11986151\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-02-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Ako Jacintho, director of addiction medicine at HealthRight360, speaks at an overdose prevention rally in front of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on May 14, 2024. \u003ccite>(Sydney Johnson/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In addition, Mayor London Breed and Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948062/newsom-taps-chp-national-guard-to-fight-san-franciscos-fentanyl-crisis\">sent the National Guard to assist local police\u003c/a> and the District Attorney in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11965813/sf-wants-to-charge-drug-dealers-with-homicide-but-could-it-lead-to-more-overdose-deaths\">investigating opioid-related deaths as homicide\u003c/a> cases last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are bringing together local, state and federal law enforcement to coordinate and hold those breaking the law in our city accountable,” Breed said in a press statement about the 2023 blitz. “We want people who need support to get help, and we will continue to offer people second chances, but San Francisco can’t be a place where anything goes and allow harmful behaviors to become the norm.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But advocates say what’s needed are more public health-based strategies, like low-barrier treatment, affordable and supportive housing, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959803/in-act-of-civil-disobedience-activists-set-up-safe-drug-consumption-site-in-san-francisco\">safe consumption services\u003c/a>, rather than police crackdowns. On Tuesday, several said that the city’s law enforcement push has had \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948421/newsoms-plan-to-crack-down-on-fentanyl-in-san-francisco-could-cause-more-harm-than-good-some-addiction-experts-say\">unintended consequences that can exacerbate overdose deaths\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are putting people at risk, and this is a policy decision,” said Fabian Fernandez, a medical student at UCSF, at Tuesday’s rally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11986152\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11986152\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240514-OVERDOSE-DEATH-RALLY-SJ-03-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doctors, attorneys and community advocates rally outside the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, calling for more public health approaches to rising overdose rates on May 14, 2024. \u003ccite>(Sydney Johnson/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2955973/\">Studies\u003c/a> have shown that a person’s chances of overdose can \u003ca href=\"https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/145946/cdc_145946_DS1.pdf\">significantly increase\u003c/a> following an arrest and release from jail. Other critics of the city’s more aggressive law enforcement approaches say it can disrupt markets and cause some users to seek drugs elsewhere, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/07/05/1183172045/fentanyl-drug-busts-overdose-police-dealers-trafficking-indianapolis\">creating opportunities for riskier use\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speakers on Tuesday said increasing supportive housing, treatment and services like safe consumption sites have cost-savings potential, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One study estimates \u003ca href=\"https://www.rti.org/impact/cost-benefit-analysis-opening-safe-consumption-site-san-francisco\">that San Francisco could save a minimum of $2.6 million\u003c/a> if it were to offer places where people could use drugs more safely and out of the public, as opposed to downstream interventions like jail and emergency services. A 2023 study looking at the wider community impacts of a safe consumption site in New York City also found that\u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2811766\"> the facility did \u003cem>not \u003c/em>contribute\u003c/a> to increased drug use or crime in the surrounding area. Instead, it offered a place for people to use drugs out of the public way more safely. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Organizations calling for more public health responses at the demonstration included the \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/vJomCo2OEkuvQVVXI1Iulr?domain=youngwomenfree.org\">Young Women’s Freedom Center\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/SI2yCpYzGliA700zsDx1YR?domain=drugpolicy.org\">Drug Policy Alliance\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/ZEFZCqx2JmsXVyyOfQhNrY?domain=sfpublicdefender.org\">SF Public Defender’s Office\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/4p29CrkYKnf2WRRACyI8TN?domain=harmreductiontherapy.org\">The Harm Reduction Therapy Center\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/2sV5Cv2jOruARnnWsot4PT?domain=healthright360.org\">HealthRIGHT 360\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/TlpFCwpkPvsy2EELu8aQ0V?domain=donoharmcoalition.org\">Do No Harm Coalition\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, politics has thwarted efforts to open a safe consumption site and other approaches that public health experts call for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, Newsom vetoed a bill that would have allowed San Francisco and two other major California cities to pilot such a facility. The initiative was part of the overdose response strategy in more than 200 places around the globe, including France, Denmark, Canada, Australia, Switzerland and others. In these facilities, people can use drugs and trained staff can reverse an overdose if it occurs while also connecting people with other health and social services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Government and community leaders have tried to prop up a safe consumption site using private funding as well as funds from the city’s multimillion-dollar legal victory against opioid manufacturers, which states like Rhode Island have done. But those efforts have largely stalled in San Francisco, even as overdose rates have continued at epidemic levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In San Francisco, we make it extremely difficult for people who are struggling with substance use disorder to find their way out and find their paths to recovery,” said Laura Thomas, senior director of HIV and Harm Reduction at the San Francisco Aids Foundation, during the rally. “We put so many barriers in people’s way, from needing to have an ID to needing to show up at a certain time of day, waitlists and restrictions … We can do better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"headTitle": "2023 Was San Francisco’s Deadliest Year for Drug Overdoses, New Data Confirms | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco recorded 806\u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2024-01/2024%2001_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf\"> drug overdose deaths\u003c/a> in 2023, more than in any other year on record, a tragic milestone that experts have predicted for months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every 4 1/2 minutes, someone dies of overdose,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, at a press conference on Wednesday, detailing new preliminary data from the city’s medical examiner’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This local and national crisis is driven by multiple factors,” he added, pointing to a combination of pharmaceutical marketing, poverty, limited drug-treatment options and “decades of under-investment in behavioral health care.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 80% of all overdose deaths in the city last year involved fentanyl, a synthetic opioid about 50 times stronger than heroin, the new data shows. Commonly used in medical settings to treat pain, fentanyl first appeared in the illicit drug supply on the East Coast around 2013 and began wreaking havoc in San Francisco and other West Coast cities about five years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data also shows a slight uptick in the presence of xylazine, also known as tranq, in overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe id=\"datawrapper-chart-3jNer\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" title=\"San Francisco total overdose deaths in 2023\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/3jNer/8/\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" aria-label=\"Stacked Bars\" data-external=\"1\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cscript type=\"text/javascript\">!function(){\"use strict\";window.addEventListener(\"message\",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(\"iframe\");for(var t in a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"])for(var r=0;r\u003ce.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"][t]+\"px\";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();\n\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previously, San Francisco’s worst overdose year on record had been in 2020 — with 726 recorded deaths — as overdoses spiked after the city went under a strict COVID-19 shelter-in-place order, severely limiting many medical services and prevention options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The following two years saw a slight drop in overdose deaths, a change that medical experts say is hard to attribute to any single factor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, one tool that San Francisco employed in 2022 — a supervised consumption site — was found to have prevented more than 300 overdose deaths, according to city data and independent research. People struggling with addiction could come \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11915870/inside-san-franciscos-tenderloin-center-that-serves-hundreds-every-day\">to the facility near Civic Center\u003c/a> to use illicit drugs in a sterile environment, with medically-trained staff on-site to reverse overdoses and, ideally, connect participants to other crucial resources, like housing, drug treatment and basic health services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe title=\"San Francisco overdose deaths by month in 2023\" aria-label=\"Column Chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-z4FUt\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/z4FUt/12/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"500\" data-external=\"1\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cscript type=\"text/javascript\">!function(){\"use strict\";window.addEventListener(\"message\",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(\"iframe\");for(var t in a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"])for(var r=0;r\u003ce.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"][t]+\"px\";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();\n\u003c/script>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11915870/inside-san-franciscos-tenderloin-center-that-serves-hundreds-every-day\">The city ran a single supervised consumption site, called the Tenderloin Center\u003c/a>, for 11 months in 2022 and reported no overdose deaths at the facility during that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the site’s high-visibility location in United Nations Plaza drew sharp criticism, particularly from local business owners, and it was shuttered by the end of that year.[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=\"overdose-deaths\"]Dr. Colfax on Wednesday said supervised consumption sites could be an important tool to help the city get a grasp on its compounding overdose crisis. But the city has so far refrained from relaunching that model, largely due to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1980034/california-allows-supervised-illicit-drug-use-to-prevent-overdoses\">2022 bill\u003c/a> that would have allowed San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles to legally operate such sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We call on our legislators to make greater investments in behavioral health care, both mental health and substance-use treatment,” Colfax said. “We call on them to eliminate barriers to safe consumption sites, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11941618/sfs-mobile-clinics-made-opioid-treatment-more-accessible-during-the-pandemic-but-will-they-stay\">to access methadone\u003c/a> and make all treatment more accessible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also implored lawmakers to better support the country’s behavioral health workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t deliver services needed if we can’t hire and train a workforce,” Colfax said, noting that over 25,000 people are currently receiving care for behavioral health disorders in the city’s overwhelmed public health network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, San Francisco is working to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11945418/san-francisco-has-doubled-participants-of-this-opioid-treatment-heres-why\">increase access to treatment facilities and medications like buprenorphine\u003c/a> that help reduce opioid cravings, he said. And just last year, it distributed more than 125,000 kits of naloxone, the fast-acting medication that can reverse opioid overdoses, directly to health workers and people who use drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Saving a life is the first priority, then we can connect you to treatment,” Colfax said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the city’s street response crews that directly respond to reported overdoses increased by nearly a third last year, according to Hillary Kunins, the city’s director of behavioral health and the head of the Mental Health SF program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s street teams, she said Wednesday, “have expanded to include a multidisciplinary approach with team members out and about in the highest-need areas, and we are following people over time with consistency and persistence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor London Breed \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/breed-police-2024-election-18428814.php\">has also called on law enforcement to crack down harder\u003c/a> on public drug use and dealing and pushed for more arrests of both users and dealers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite those efforts, overdose deaths have continued to climb as highly potent synthetic substances like fentanyl continue to flood the illicit drug market, and federal funding for behavioral health care support dwindles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health workers on the ground, like Britt Rubin, a substance-use counselor on the city’s street response team, said a key part of her work is keeping up with the ever-changing drug landscape and understanding what people need to know to stay safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just have real talk with people in the substance-using community about what’s going on. Have the drugs changed? Is this what you expected and what you were seeking?” Rubin said at Wednesday’s press conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest overdose report shows that men accounted for the vast majority of San Francisco's overdose deaths last year (nearly 83%). It also finds that the city's Black residents were disproportionately impacted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe id=\"datawrapper-chart-EJD6r\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" title=\"San Francisco overdose deaths by race in 2023\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/EJD6r/5/\" height=\"548\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" aria-label=\"Donut Chart\" data-external=\"1\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cscript type=\"text/javascript\">!function(){\"use strict\";window.addEventListener(\"message\",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(\"iframe\");for(var t in a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"])for(var r=0;r\u003ce.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"][t]+\"px\";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Black people in San Francisco accounted for roughly 31% of all overdose deaths in 2023 — second only to white people — despite making up less than 5% of the city’s total population, the data shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tyrone Martin, a peer supervisor with the public health department, who helps people in the Tenderloin struggling with substance use, said his journey from addiction to recovery was supported by family and outreach teams similar to the one he works with now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I experienced compassion, and I want to give that back,” Martin said. “It’s not linear what we do … but one thing I will say is that when there is genuine authentic outreach going on in the TL [Tenderloin], there is success.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco recorded 806\u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2024-01/2024%2001_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf\"> drug overdose deaths\u003c/a> in 2023, more than in any other year on record, a tragic milestone that experts have predicted for months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every 4 1/2 minutes, someone dies of overdose,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, at a press conference on Wednesday, detailing new preliminary data from the city’s medical examiner’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This local and national crisis is driven by multiple factors,” he added, pointing to a combination of pharmaceutical marketing, poverty, limited drug-treatment options and “decades of under-investment in behavioral health care.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 80% of all overdose deaths in the city last year involved fentanyl, a synthetic opioid about 50 times stronger than heroin, the new data shows. Commonly used in medical settings to treat pain, fentanyl first appeared in the illicit drug supply on the East Coast around 2013 and began wreaking havoc in San Francisco and other West Coast cities about five years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data also shows a slight uptick in the presence of xylazine, also known as tranq, in overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe id=\"datawrapper-chart-3jNer\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" title=\"San Francisco total overdose deaths in 2023\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/3jNer/8/\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" aria-label=\"Stacked Bars\" data-external=\"1\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cscript type=\"text/javascript\">!function(){\"use strict\";window.addEventListener(\"message\",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(\"iframe\");for(var t in a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"])for(var r=0;r\u003ce.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"][t]+\"px\";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();\n\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previously, San Francisco’s worst overdose year on record had been in 2020 — with 726 recorded deaths — as overdoses spiked after the city went under a strict COVID-19 shelter-in-place order, severely limiting many medical services and prevention options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The following two years saw a slight drop in overdose deaths, a change that medical experts say is hard to attribute to any single factor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, one tool that San Francisco employed in 2022 — a supervised consumption site — was found to have prevented more than 300 overdose deaths, according to city data and independent research. People struggling with addiction could come \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11915870/inside-san-franciscos-tenderloin-center-that-serves-hundreds-every-day\">to the facility near Civic Center\u003c/a> to use illicit drugs in a sterile environment, with medically-trained staff on-site to reverse overdoses and, ideally, connect participants to other crucial resources, like housing, drug treatment and basic health services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe title=\"San Francisco overdose deaths by month in 2023\" aria-label=\"Column Chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-z4FUt\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/z4FUt/12/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"500\" data-external=\"1\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cscript type=\"text/javascript\">!function(){\"use strict\";window.addEventListener(\"message\",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(\"iframe\");for(var t in a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"])for(var r=0;r\u003ce.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"][t]+\"px\";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();\n\u003c/script>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11915870/inside-san-franciscos-tenderloin-center-that-serves-hundreds-every-day\">The city ran a single supervised consumption site, called the Tenderloin Center\u003c/a>, for 11 months in 2022 and reported no overdose deaths at the facility during that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the site’s high-visibility location in United Nations Plaza drew sharp criticism, particularly from local business owners, and it was shuttered by the end of that year.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Dr. Colfax on Wednesday said supervised consumption sites could be an important tool to help the city get a grasp on its compounding overdose crisis. But the city has so far refrained from relaunching that model, largely due to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1980034/california-allows-supervised-illicit-drug-use-to-prevent-overdoses\">2022 bill\u003c/a> that would have allowed San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles to legally operate such sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We call on our legislators to make greater investments in behavioral health care, both mental health and substance-use treatment,” Colfax said. “We call on them to eliminate barriers to safe consumption sites, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11941618/sfs-mobile-clinics-made-opioid-treatment-more-accessible-during-the-pandemic-but-will-they-stay\">to access methadone\u003c/a> and make all treatment more accessible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also implored lawmakers to better support the country’s behavioral health workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t deliver services needed if we can’t hire and train a workforce,” Colfax said, noting that over 25,000 people are currently receiving care for behavioral health disorders in the city’s overwhelmed public health network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, San Francisco is working to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11945418/san-francisco-has-doubled-participants-of-this-opioid-treatment-heres-why\">increase access to treatment facilities and medications like buprenorphine\u003c/a> that help reduce opioid cravings, he said. And just last year, it distributed more than 125,000 kits of naloxone, the fast-acting medication that can reverse opioid overdoses, directly to health workers and people who use drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Saving a life is the first priority, then we can connect you to treatment,” Colfax said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the city’s street response crews that directly respond to reported overdoses increased by nearly a third last year, according to Hillary Kunins, the city’s director of behavioral health and the head of the Mental Health SF program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s street teams, she said Wednesday, “have expanded to include a multidisciplinary approach with team members out and about in the highest-need areas, and we are following people over time with consistency and persistence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor London Breed \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/breed-police-2024-election-18428814.php\">has also called on law enforcement to crack down harder\u003c/a> on public drug use and dealing and pushed for more arrests of both users and dealers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite those efforts, overdose deaths have continued to climb as highly potent synthetic substances like fentanyl continue to flood the illicit drug market, and federal funding for behavioral health care support dwindles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health workers on the ground, like Britt Rubin, a substance-use counselor on the city’s street response team, said a key part of her work is keeping up with the ever-changing drug landscape and understanding what people need to know to stay safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just have real talk with people in the substance-using community about what’s going on. Have the drugs changed? Is this what you expected and what you were seeking?” Rubin said at Wednesday’s press conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest overdose report shows that men accounted for the vast majority of San Francisco's overdose deaths last year (nearly 83%). It also finds that the city's Black residents were disproportionately impacted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe id=\"datawrapper-chart-EJD6r\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" title=\"San Francisco overdose deaths by race in 2023\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/EJD6r/5/\" height=\"548\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" aria-label=\"Donut Chart\" data-external=\"1\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cscript type=\"text/javascript\">!function(){\"use strict\";window.addEventListener(\"message\",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(\"iframe\");for(var t in a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"])for(var r=0;r\u003ce.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data[\"datawrapper-height\"][t]+\"px\";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Black people in San Francisco accounted for roughly 31% of all overdose deaths in 2023 — second only to white people — despite making up less than 5% of the city’s total population, the data shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tyrone Martin, a peer supervisor with the public health department, who helps people in the Tenderloin struggling with substance use, said his journey from addiction to recovery was supported by family and outreach teams similar to the one he works with now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I experienced compassion, and I want to give that back,” Martin said. “It’s not linear what we do … but one thing I will say is that when there is genuine authentic outreach going on in the TL [Tenderloin], there is success.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>As the number of overdose deaths in San Francisco \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11967618/san-francisco-projected-to-reach-highest-overdose-death-toll-in-2023\">surpasses previous years\u003c/a>, city officials are expanding wastewater testing for fentanyl and other substances to better inform public health responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Public Health on Thursday announced its wastewater analysis plan, the same day that the Office of the Medical Examiner released its latest dataset showing that there have been more overdose deaths in San Francisco this year than in previous years. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Dr. Hillary Kunins, director of behavioral health services, San Francisco Department of Public Health\"]‘Data from wastewater testing will help provide information about the presence of risky substances in San Francisco and prompt more strategic interventions aimed at saving lives.’[/pullquote]There were 752 overdose deaths in San Francisco from January to November 2023, preliminary data from the medical examiner shows. In 2020, the worst year on record previously, there were 726 overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need all the tools available to identify the presence of substances that may be used to halt and reverse this deadly epidemic,” said Dr. Hillary Kunins, director of behavioral health services at SFDPH. “Data from wastewater testing will help provide information about the presence of risky substances in San Francisco and prompt more strategic interventions aimed at saving lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fentanyl, an opioid about 50 times stronger than heroin, is the most common substance associated with the recent spike in overdose deaths in San Francisco and across other major West Coast cities. It is commonly used in surgical settings under medical supervision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city will also be monitoring wastewater for levels of methamphetamine, amphetamine, cocaine and xylazine, which have been used in combination with fentanyl in some overdoses and also naloxone, a fast-acting opioid overdose reversal medicine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco is among 70 different U.S. regions working with the National Institute on Drug Abuse to measure the presence of the substances through wastewater testing. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Jeffrey Hom, director of population behavioral health, San Francisco\"]‘Elevated levels of drugs and drug metabolites could be used to predict higher risk periods of overdose and could prompt interventions by the city.’[/pullquote]The idea is to have better foresight into what substances are present in the illicit drug supply and to direct public health resources in response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no other way for us to understand, at a population level, what all the different drugs being consumed are,” said Jeffrey Hom, director of population behavioral health for San Francisco, at a press conference on Thursday. “Elevated levels of drugs and drug metabolites could be used to predict higher risk periods of overdose and could prompt interventions by the city.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research from other jurisdictions already monitoring wastewater for opioids and other substances has shown some correlation between rising levels of risky substances and increased overdose deaths as well as calls to 911 for overdose response. [aside postID=news_11965813 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-53134889-1020x680.jpg']“This can help us explain other trends we are seeing and that can help guide our response,” Hom said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today’s grim milestone was projected months ago by experts tracking the evolution of the opioid crisis across the country. Before fentanyl arrived in California’s illicit drug supply, roughly around 2019, several East Coast cities saw overdoses skyrocket just a few years earlier, also largely due to fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, overdose deaths are concentrated in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, medical examiner data shows. The majority of overdose deaths in 2023 were among white San Franciscans. However, rates among Black and Latinx residents are increasing much faster than for white residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Thursday’s press conference, health officials called on the federal government to fund more public health responses to the crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fentanyl crisis is a national one, and it’s affecting cities like San Francisco,” Kunins said. “We need the support and resources of the federal government, and this program is an example.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As the number of overdose deaths in San Francisco \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11967618/san-francisco-projected-to-reach-highest-overdose-death-toll-in-2023\">surpasses previous years\u003c/a>, city officials are expanding wastewater testing for fentanyl and other substances to better inform public health responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Public Health on Thursday announced its wastewater analysis plan, the same day that the Office of the Medical Examiner released its latest dataset showing that there have been more overdose deaths in San Francisco this year than in previous years. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>There were 752 overdose deaths in San Francisco from January to November 2023, preliminary data from the medical examiner shows. In 2020, the worst year on record previously, there were 726 overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need all the tools available to identify the presence of substances that may be used to halt and reverse this deadly epidemic,” said Dr. Hillary Kunins, director of behavioral health services at SFDPH. “Data from wastewater testing will help provide information about the presence of risky substances in San Francisco and prompt more strategic interventions aimed at saving lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fentanyl, an opioid about 50 times stronger than heroin, is the most common substance associated with the recent spike in overdose deaths in San Francisco and across other major West Coast cities. It is commonly used in surgical settings under medical supervision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city will also be monitoring wastewater for levels of methamphetamine, amphetamine, cocaine and xylazine, which have been used in combination with fentanyl in some overdoses and also naloxone, a fast-acting opioid overdose reversal medicine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco is among 70 different U.S. regions working with the National Institute on Drug Abuse to measure the presence of the substances through wastewater testing. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The idea is to have better foresight into what substances are present in the illicit drug supply and to direct public health resources in response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no other way for us to understand, at a population level, what all the different drugs being consumed are,” said Jeffrey Hom, director of population behavioral health for San Francisco, at a press conference on Thursday. “Elevated levels of drugs and drug metabolites could be used to predict higher risk periods of overdose and could prompt interventions by the city.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research from other jurisdictions already monitoring wastewater for opioids and other substances has shown some correlation between rising levels of risky substances and increased overdose deaths as well as calls to 911 for overdose response. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“This can help us explain other trends we are seeing and that can help guide our response,” Hom said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today’s grim milestone was projected months ago by experts tracking the evolution of the opioid crisis across the country. Before fentanyl arrived in California’s illicit drug supply, roughly around 2019, several East Coast cities saw overdoses skyrocket just a few years earlier, also largely due to fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, overdose deaths are concentrated in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, medical examiner data shows. The majority of overdose deaths in 2023 were among white San Franciscans. However, rates among Black and Latinx residents are increasing much faster than for white residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Thursday’s press conference, health officials called on the federal government to fund more public health responses to the crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fentanyl crisis is a national one, and it’s affecting cities like San Francisco,” Kunins said. “We need the support and resources of the federal government, and this program is an example.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco is on track to hit a tragic milestone by the end of the year — with more fatal overdoses projected in 2023 than any on record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is absolutely bleak, but it is not unexpected,” said Alex Kral, an epidemiologist at the independent nonprofit research institute RTI International. “Absent any new huge impactful interventions, I would continue to expect us to get worse for a couple of years until it would stabilize. But stabilized still means bad.” [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Alex Kral, epidemiologist, RTI International\"]‘It is absolutely bleak, but it is not unexpected.’[/pullquote]There were 692 accidental overdose deaths from January to October of this year, with 65 occurring in October, according to the latest \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/2023%2011_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf\">medical examiner data\u003c/a> released Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new data supports projections made months ago that the city could eclipse its tragic milestone from 2020, when a total of 726 overdose deaths occurred.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kral has studied drug use and overdoses in San Francisco for nearly 30 years. His estimation that overdose deaths may continue to rise is based on patterns in the East Coast, where fentanyl became more common in the illicit drug supply about 10 years ago, before hitting the West Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On top of a deadlier drug supply, Kral says widening economic inequality, coupled with the region’s severe lack of affordable housing and out-of-reach treatment options, have fueled overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have seen on the East Coast that it really took about five years or so for things to continue to skyrocket before leveling off,” Kral said. “In San Francisco, fentanyl didn’t really show up in a large way until 2019, so we are still in year three or four of that huge increase.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The majority of overdose deaths occurring in San Francisco — and elsewhere across the West Coast — involve fentanyl, an opioid about 50 times stronger than heroin. Many overdose deaths in the report involved combinations of substances with fentanyl, including methamphetamine and cocaine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to rising overdoses, local public health officials have dramatically expanded the availability of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11945418/san-francisco-has-doubled-participants-of-this-opioid-treatment-heres-why\">buprenorphine\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11941618/sfs-mobile-clinics-made-opioid-treatment-more-accessible-during-the-pandemic-but-will-they-stay\">methadone\u003c/a>, medications that can curb opioid cravings and withdrawal and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959733/san-franciscans-want-you-to-know-recovery-is-possible\">help with recovery\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11967667\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11967667 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Boxes of Narcan are on a table.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Boxes of Narcan, the overdose prevention drug, at a safe drug use pop-up site created by volunteers with Concerned Public Response in San Francisco on Aug. 31, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In addition, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11947448/there-to-save-a-life-san-francisco-bars-fight-fentanyl-overdoses-with-narcan\">widespread distribution of Narcan\u003c/a>, a fast-acting medicine that can reverse an opioid overdose, has saved countless lives. The city also plans to add new residential treatment beds in 2024 to its current total of 2,550.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We must remain nimble in our overdose prevention efforts, including getting more people who use drugs into treatment with medications for opioid use disorder in outpatient and residential treatment settings,” reads a press statement from the Department of Public Health, released after the data was published. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"San Francisco Mayor London Breed\"]‘Fentanyl is devastating communities in cities all across our country like no other drug we’ve ever experienced before and this crisis demands additional urgent intervention efforts.’[/pullquote]While these public health resources have been growing, Mayor London Breed has also charged local and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948062/newsom-taps-chp-national-guard-to-fight-san-franciscos-fentanyl-crisis\">state law enforcement\u003c/a> to crack down harder on drug trafficking as well as increase \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11950520/compassion-is-killing-people-london-breed-pushes-for-more-arrests-to-tackle-sfs-drug-crisis\">arrests for public drug use and dealing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That included bringing in the CalGuard and California Highway Patrol to work with San Francisco police, and this week, she joined 36 other U.S. mayors in asking President Joe Biden for additional support to tackle the drug supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fentanyl is devastating communities in cities all across our country like no other drug we’ve ever experienced before and this crisis demands additional urgent intervention efforts,” said Mayor Breed in a press statement announcing the federal funding request. “President Biden’s funding request gets at the heart of what we need — more funding for treatment to help those struggling with addiction and to prevent overdoses, and support for public safety and enforcement efforts to hold those accountable who are profiting off this deadly drug.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, public health advocates have been pushing the city for years to open a supervised consumption site where people can use drugs in a medically supervised setting, and doctors can be available to reverse overdoses and connect users to other social or health services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 200 such facilities operate globally, including in New York City. Rhode Island also plans to open up an overdose prevention center with funding it won from lawsuits against opioid manufacturers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11967676\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11967676 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/015_KQED_GubbioProjectLydiaBransten_03092023-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A sign that reads the Gubbio Project in San Francisco.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/015_KQED_GubbioProjectLydiaBransten_03092023-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/015_KQED_GubbioProjectLydiaBransten_03092023-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/015_KQED_GubbioProjectLydiaBransten_03092023-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/015_KQED_GubbioProjectLydiaBransten_03092023-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/015_KQED_GubbioProjectLydiaBransten_03092023-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign for the Gubbio Project, a nonprofit offering services for unhoused people, hangs on the front gate in San Francisco on March 9, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>San Francisco ran a safe consumption site in 2022, a year when overdose deaths dipped. There were 333 overdoses reversed at the facility, and no deaths took place. The site drew in hundreds of people a day for meals, showers and overdose prevention help but closed down after 11 months of operation. The city has not reopened a similar site since. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Lydia Bransten, executive director, Gubbio Project\"]‘There are a lot of words to run [supervised consumption sites], but nothing to say we will be there for you if something happens legally. That has really put people in a position where they don’t feel safe to be able to do it.’[/pullquote]Supervised consumption sites are one aspect of local drug response, along with residential treatment, medication-assisted treatment, abstinence, law enforcement coordination and better access to housing and health care. But they have been hard to open in San Francisco since \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11923303/sf-health-groups-determined-to-forge-ahead-with-safe-consumption-site-despite-newsoms-veto\">Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill\u003c/a> allowing the city to pilot them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters like Lydia Bransten, executive director of the Gubbio Project, said supervised consumption sites could make a significant difference in simply saving lives and slowing the uptick in overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was one of about a dozen volunteers who ran a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959803/in-act-of-civil-disobedience-activists-set-up-safe-drug-consumption-site-in-san-francisco\">pop-up overdose prevention center\u003c/a> in August, where two lives were saved from overdoses during the civil disobedience act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gubbio Project was also one nonprofit that the city had pegged to privately run safe consumption services last year when the city announced a plan to open so-called “wellness hubs” with various overdose prevention services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after months of dragging the idea along with no progress, Bransten said the plan is at a “dead end.” [aside label='More Stories on Health' tag='health']“There are a lot of words to run [supervised consumption sites], but nothing to say we will be there for you if something happens legally. That has really put people in a position where they don’t feel safe to be able to do it,” Bransten said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her organization offers a space to sleep and gives away hygiene kits to people experiencing homelessness. It also provides wellness services like massages and interfaith chaplains for people who come through its doors in the Mission neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people who rely on Gubbio’s basic needs services also use drugs, Bransten said. The rising overdose toll has hit the community hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We lost two people in our direct community last month, both of whom had been using drugs for decades and have been in and out of treatment multiple times,” Bransten told KQED. “This is a tragedy that is hitting not only San Francisco but cities around the country, and it will take a federal response to be able to take down some of the barriers to help us be able to curb these overdose deaths.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco is on track to hit a tragic milestone by the end of the year — with more fatal overdoses projected in 2023 than any on record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is absolutely bleak, but it is not unexpected,” said Alex Kral, an epidemiologist at the independent nonprofit research institute RTI International. “Absent any new huge impactful interventions, I would continue to expect us to get worse for a couple of years until it would stabilize. But stabilized still means bad.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>There were 692 accidental overdose deaths from January to October of this year, with 65 occurring in October, according to the latest \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/2023%2011_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf\">medical examiner data\u003c/a> released Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new data supports projections made months ago that the city could eclipse its tragic milestone from 2020, when a total of 726 overdose deaths occurred.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kral has studied drug use and overdoses in San Francisco for nearly 30 years. His estimation that overdose deaths may continue to rise is based on patterns in the East Coast, where fentanyl became more common in the illicit drug supply about 10 years ago, before hitting the West Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On top of a deadlier drug supply, Kral says widening economic inequality, coupled with the region’s severe lack of affordable housing and out-of-reach treatment options, have fueled overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have seen on the East Coast that it really took about five years or so for things to continue to skyrocket before leveling off,” Kral said. “In San Francisco, fentanyl didn’t really show up in a large way until 2019, so we are still in year three or four of that huge increase.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The majority of overdose deaths occurring in San Francisco — and elsewhere across the West Coast — involve fentanyl, an opioid about 50 times stronger than heroin. Many overdose deaths in the report involved combinations of substances with fentanyl, including methamphetamine and cocaine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to rising overdoses, local public health officials have dramatically expanded the availability of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11945418/san-francisco-has-doubled-participants-of-this-opioid-treatment-heres-why\">buprenorphine\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11941618/sfs-mobile-clinics-made-opioid-treatment-more-accessible-during-the-pandemic-but-will-they-stay\">methadone\u003c/a>, medications that can curb opioid cravings and withdrawal and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959733/san-franciscans-want-you-to-know-recovery-is-possible\">help with recovery\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11967667\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11967667 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Boxes of Narcan are on a table.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230831-SAFE-USE-POP-UP-MD-05-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Boxes of Narcan, the overdose prevention drug, at a safe drug use pop-up site created by volunteers with Concerned Public Response in San Francisco on Aug. 31, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In addition, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11947448/there-to-save-a-life-san-francisco-bars-fight-fentanyl-overdoses-with-narcan\">widespread distribution of Narcan\u003c/a>, a fast-acting medicine that can reverse an opioid overdose, has saved countless lives. The city also plans to add new residential treatment beds in 2024 to its current total of 2,550.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We must remain nimble in our overdose prevention efforts, including getting more people who use drugs into treatment with medications for opioid use disorder in outpatient and residential treatment settings,” reads a press statement from the Department of Public Health, released after the data was published. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Fentanyl is devastating communities in cities all across our country like no other drug we’ve ever experienced before and this crisis demands additional urgent intervention efforts.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>While these public health resources have been growing, Mayor London Breed has also charged local and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948062/newsom-taps-chp-national-guard-to-fight-san-franciscos-fentanyl-crisis\">state law enforcement\u003c/a> to crack down harder on drug trafficking as well as increase \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11950520/compassion-is-killing-people-london-breed-pushes-for-more-arrests-to-tackle-sfs-drug-crisis\">arrests for public drug use and dealing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That included bringing in the CalGuard and California Highway Patrol to work with San Francisco police, and this week, she joined 36 other U.S. mayors in asking President Joe Biden for additional support to tackle the drug supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fentanyl is devastating communities in cities all across our country like no other drug we’ve ever experienced before and this crisis demands additional urgent intervention efforts,” said Mayor Breed in a press statement announcing the federal funding request. “President Biden’s funding request gets at the heart of what we need — more funding for treatment to help those struggling with addiction and to prevent overdoses, and support for public safety and enforcement efforts to hold those accountable who are profiting off this deadly drug.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, public health advocates have been pushing the city for years to open a supervised consumption site where people can use drugs in a medically supervised setting, and doctors can be available to reverse overdoses and connect users to other social or health services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 200 such facilities operate globally, including in New York City. Rhode Island also plans to open up an overdose prevention center with funding it won from lawsuits against opioid manufacturers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11967676\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11967676 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/015_KQED_GubbioProjectLydiaBransten_03092023-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A sign that reads the Gubbio Project in San Francisco.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/015_KQED_GubbioProjectLydiaBransten_03092023-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/015_KQED_GubbioProjectLydiaBransten_03092023-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/015_KQED_GubbioProjectLydiaBransten_03092023-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/015_KQED_GubbioProjectLydiaBransten_03092023-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/015_KQED_GubbioProjectLydiaBransten_03092023-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign for the Gubbio Project, a nonprofit offering services for unhoused people, hangs on the front gate in San Francisco on March 9, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>San Francisco ran a safe consumption site in 2022, a year when overdose deaths dipped. There were 333 overdoses reversed at the facility, and no deaths took place. The site drew in hundreds of people a day for meals, showers and overdose prevention help but closed down after 11 months of operation. The city has not reopened a similar site since. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘There are a lot of words to run [supervised consumption sites], but nothing to say we will be there for you if something happens legally. That has really put people in a position where they don’t feel safe to be able to do it.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Supervised consumption sites are one aspect of local drug response, along with residential treatment, medication-assisted treatment, abstinence, law enforcement coordination and better access to housing and health care. But they have been hard to open in San Francisco since \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11923303/sf-health-groups-determined-to-forge-ahead-with-safe-consumption-site-despite-newsoms-veto\">Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill\u003c/a> allowing the city to pilot them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters like Lydia Bransten, executive director of the Gubbio Project, said supervised consumption sites could make a significant difference in simply saving lives and slowing the uptick in overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was one of about a dozen volunteers who ran a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959803/in-act-of-civil-disobedience-activists-set-up-safe-drug-consumption-site-in-san-francisco\">pop-up overdose prevention center\u003c/a> in August, where two lives were saved from overdoses during the civil disobedience act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gubbio Project was also one nonprofit that the city had pegged to privately run safe consumption services last year when the city announced a plan to open so-called “wellness hubs” with various overdose prevention services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after months of dragging the idea along with no progress, Bransten said the plan is at a “dead end.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“There are a lot of words to run [supervised consumption sites], but nothing to say we will be there for you if something happens legally. That has really put people in a position where they don’t feel safe to be able to do it,” Bransten said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her organization offers a space to sleep and gives away hygiene kits to people experiencing homelessness. It also provides wellness services like massages and interfaith chaplains for people who come through its doors in the Mission neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people who rely on Gubbio’s basic needs services also use drugs, Bransten said. The rising overdose toll has hit the community hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We lost two people in our direct community last month, both of whom had been using drugs for decades and have been in and out of treatment multiple times,” Bransten told KQED. “This is a tragedy that is hitting not only San Francisco but cities around the country, and it will take a federal response to be able to take down some of the barriers to help us be able to curb these overdose deaths.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Starting next year, drug dealers in San Francisco could be charged with murder if the opioids they sell lead to overdoses—but some experts say that plan could instead lead to more deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced Friday morning that law enforcement officials in California and San Francisco will investigate drug overdose deaths as homicides beginning in 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan aims to deter drug dealing and hold suppliers accountable for overdose deaths. But many public health and criminal justice advocates are concerned it will, instead, lead to an increase in the already high number of overdose deaths. They say this latest effort to crack down on drug dealing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948421/newsoms-plan-to-crack-down-on-fentanyl-in-san-francisco-could-cause-more-harm-than-good-some-addiction-experts-say\">could further worsen San Francisco’s drug overdose crisis\u003c/a> by creating more chaotic conditions in the drug trade and deterring people from calling 9-1-1 when help is needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Angela Chan, San Francisco public defender's office\"]‘It’s going to deter people from calling 9-1-1 and getting an ambulance, getting doctors and help to this.’[/pullquote]“It’s more of the same failed policy and regressive \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11929022/is-sf-reviving-the-war-on-drugs-former-cop-health-experts-say-yes\">War on Drugs\u003c/a>. This latest announcement threatens homicide prosecutions, but will only further increase, unfortunately, overdose deaths,” Angela Chan, assistant chief attorney at San Francisco’s public defender’s office, told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s going to deter people from calling 9-1-1 and getting an ambulance, getting doctors and help to this,” Chan said. It’s not uncommon for people to use drugs with their supplier, who could be a friend or \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/prosecutors-treat-opioid-overdoses-as-homicides-snagging-friends-relatives-1513538404\">even a family member\u003c/a>. “People who are overdosing need immediate emergency care, and every second matters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breed and Newsom’s plan is to combine personnel from the San Francisco Police Department, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, the California Highway Patrol and the California National Guard to jointly investigate opioid deaths in San Francisco similar to homicide cases and to pursue murder charges against drug dealers. City officials did not say exactly when next year the group would begin this work or how many staff would be assigned to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have already been working with these state agencies to deal with the open-air drug dealing that’s been happening in San Francisco,” Mayor London Breed told reporters on Friday, “we plan to take it a step further.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is impacting the quality of life in San Francisco more than any other drug we’ve encountered,” Breed said. “We must treat the trafficking and sale of fentanyl more severely, and people must be put on notice that pushing this drug could lead to homicide charges.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the plan, the law enforcement task force would investigate opioid cases as a homicide if there is sufficient evidence from an overdose death scene to trace it to a specific dealer. Medical examiners currently determine what substances are involved in an overdose death, and evidence from the scene where a person overdoses could then be used by the district attorney’s office to file murder charges against the supplier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This dramatic shift to charging some drug dealers with murder comes after Breed and Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948062/newsom-taps-chp-national-guard-to-fight-san-franciscos-fentanyl-crisis\">earlier this year announced\u003c/a> that state law enforcement agencies would assist San Francisco in cracking down on drug dealing and drug trafficking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before that, the state added more than $1 billion to support the National Guard’s efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking, and state law enforcement seized 594% more fentanyl in 2022 compared to 2021, according to Newsom’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11950467,news_11945418,news_11948421,mindshift_62310 label='More on the Opioid Crisis']Efforts to increase punishments for drug dealers are also escalating locally and nationally. In California, at least two dealers have been convicted of murder charges related to a fentanyl overdose death since last year. Breed’s plan will have San Francisco follow San Diego and Santa Clara counties, which have already moved to charge some dealers with homicide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We hope that dealers will decide that San Francisco is not the place for them to be dealing,” Breed said. “People who are dealing these drugs need to be accountable in a way they haven’t been before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nationwide, just 28 people in the country faced drug-induced homicide prosecutions in 2007, but that spiked to nearly 700 people in 2018, based on an \u003ca href=\"https://www.healthinjustice.org/drug-induced-homicide\">analysis\u003c/a> of media reports from Northeastern University School of Law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fatal drug deaths have increased, as well, across the country and the Bay Area in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco is currently on track to have its deadliest year on record for overdose deaths. There have been \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/data/preliminary-unintentional-drug-overdose-deaths\">619 overdose deaths\u003c/a> in the city from January to September, according to data from the office of the medical examiner. San Francisco is projected to have 200 more overdose-related fatalities this year than last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Treating opioid deaths similarly to homicides only serves to stigmatize those battling substance use disorders and can discourage individuals from seeking assistance,” said Gary McCoy, vice president of policy and public affairs at HealthRight 360, which provides drug treatment services in San Francisco. “Such an approach also exacerbates cycles of incarceration without achieving the essential objectives of overdose prevention and saving lives in public health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The worsening of the city’s overdose crisis that occurred in tandem with those changes has experts, like Chan, deeply concerned about the city’s efforts to move further in that direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public health and harm reduction advocates in San Francisco have for many years been pushing the city to open up more services to address the demand for drugs, like supportive housing, more treatment options and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959803/in-act-of-civil-disobedience-activists-set-up-safe-drug-consumption-site-in-san-francisco\">safe consumption sites\u003c/a> where people struggling with addiction can use drugs in a medically supervised setting and doctors can reverse an overdose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They announce policy after policy that is focused on criminalizing, police-centered approaches, rather than public health approaches,” Chan said. “We urge the mayor, the governor and other city officials, including our DA, to take stock of how much of a failure this approach has been and how harmful it’s been in terms of increasing overdoses.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED senior editor Tyche Hendricks and reporter Oscar Palma contributed to this story. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Starting next year, drug dealers in San Francisco could be charged with murder if the opioids they sell lead to overdoses—but some experts say that plan could instead lead to more deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced Friday morning that law enforcement officials in California and San Francisco will investigate drug overdose deaths as homicides beginning in 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan aims to deter drug dealing and hold suppliers accountable for overdose deaths. But many public health and criminal justice advocates are concerned it will, instead, lead to an increase in the already high number of overdose deaths. They say this latest effort to crack down on drug dealing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948421/newsoms-plan-to-crack-down-on-fentanyl-in-san-francisco-could-cause-more-harm-than-good-some-addiction-experts-say\">could further worsen San Francisco’s drug overdose crisis\u003c/a> by creating more chaotic conditions in the drug trade and deterring people from calling 9-1-1 when help is needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“It’s more of the same failed policy and regressive \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11929022/is-sf-reviving-the-war-on-drugs-former-cop-health-experts-say-yes\">War on Drugs\u003c/a>. This latest announcement threatens homicide prosecutions, but will only further increase, unfortunately, overdose deaths,” Angela Chan, assistant chief attorney at San Francisco’s public defender’s office, told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s going to deter people from calling 9-1-1 and getting an ambulance, getting doctors and help to this,” Chan said. It’s not uncommon for people to use drugs with their supplier, who could be a friend or \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/prosecutors-treat-opioid-overdoses-as-homicides-snagging-friends-relatives-1513538404\">even a family member\u003c/a>. “People who are overdosing need immediate emergency care, and every second matters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breed and Newsom’s plan is to combine personnel from the San Francisco Police Department, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, the California Highway Patrol and the California National Guard to jointly investigate opioid deaths in San Francisco similar to homicide cases and to pursue murder charges against drug dealers. City officials did not say exactly when next year the group would begin this work or how many staff would be assigned to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have already been working with these state agencies to deal with the open-air drug dealing that’s been happening in San Francisco,” Mayor London Breed told reporters on Friday, “we plan to take it a step further.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is impacting the quality of life in San Francisco more than any other drug we’ve encountered,” Breed said. “We must treat the trafficking and sale of fentanyl more severely, and people must be put on notice that pushing this drug could lead to homicide charges.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the plan, the law enforcement task force would investigate opioid cases as a homicide if there is sufficient evidence from an overdose death scene to trace it to a specific dealer. Medical examiners currently determine what substances are involved in an overdose death, and evidence from the scene where a person overdoses could then be used by the district attorney’s office to file murder charges against the supplier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This dramatic shift to charging some drug dealers with murder comes after Breed and Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948062/newsom-taps-chp-national-guard-to-fight-san-franciscos-fentanyl-crisis\">earlier this year announced\u003c/a> that state law enforcement agencies would assist San Francisco in cracking down on drug dealing and drug trafficking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before that, the state added more than $1 billion to support the National Guard’s efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking, and state law enforcement seized 594% more fentanyl in 2022 compared to 2021, according to Newsom’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Efforts to increase punishments for drug dealers are also escalating locally and nationally. In California, at least two dealers have been convicted of murder charges related to a fentanyl overdose death since last year. Breed’s plan will have San Francisco follow San Diego and Santa Clara counties, which have already moved to charge some dealers with homicide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We hope that dealers will decide that San Francisco is not the place for them to be dealing,” Breed said. “People who are dealing these drugs need to be accountable in a way they haven’t been before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nationwide, just 28 people in the country faced drug-induced homicide prosecutions in 2007, but that spiked to nearly 700 people in 2018, based on an \u003ca href=\"https://www.healthinjustice.org/drug-induced-homicide\">analysis\u003c/a> of media reports from Northeastern University School of Law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fatal drug deaths have increased, as well, across the country and the Bay Area in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco is currently on track to have its deadliest year on record for overdose deaths. There have been \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/data/preliminary-unintentional-drug-overdose-deaths\">619 overdose deaths\u003c/a> in the city from January to September, according to data from the office of the medical examiner. San Francisco is projected to have 200 more overdose-related fatalities this year than last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Treating opioid deaths similarly to homicides only serves to stigmatize those battling substance use disorders and can discourage individuals from seeking assistance,” said Gary McCoy, vice president of policy and public affairs at HealthRight 360, which provides drug treatment services in San Francisco. “Such an approach also exacerbates cycles of incarceration without achieving the essential objectives of overdose prevention and saving lives in public health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The worsening of the city’s overdose crisis that occurred in tandem with those changes has experts, like Chan, deeply concerned about the city’s efforts to move further in that direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public health and harm reduction advocates in San Francisco have for many years been pushing the city to open up more services to address the demand for drugs, like supportive housing, more treatment options and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959803/in-act-of-civil-disobedience-activists-set-up-safe-drug-consumption-site-in-san-francisco\">safe consumption sites\u003c/a> where people struggling with addiction can use drugs in a medically supervised setting and doctors can reverse an overdose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They announce policy after policy that is focused on criminalizing, police-centered approaches, rather than public health approaches,” Chan said. “We urge the mayor, the governor and other city officials, including our DA, to take stock of how much of a failure this approach has been and how harmful it’s been in terms of increasing overdoses.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED senior editor Tyche Hendricks and reporter Oscar Palma contributed to this story. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "San Francisco Will Use Opioid Settlement to Also Expand Treatment for Meth, Cocaine Use",
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"content": "\u003cp>Fentanyl and other \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948062/newsom-taps-chp-national-guard-to-fight-san-franciscos-fentanyl-crisis\">opioids dominate discussions\u003c/a> about the overdose crisis on the West Coast. But stimulants, like methamphetamine and cocaine, are often involved in fatal drug overdoses, too, especially when they are mixed with opioids like fentanyl, intentionally or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why San Francisco city leaders are looking to increase access to treatment for stimulant use with the help of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11949888/walgreens-pay-san-francisco-230-million-opioid-crisis\">millions of dollars\u003c/a> the city is receiving through settlements with opioid manufacturers and pharmacies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11945418,science_1982214,news_11944267\"]Wayne Rafus is a manager at a program at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF) that helps people change their meth or cocaine use, called PROP 4 All. He said that about 40% of the time, fentanyl is showing up in voluntary drug tests — even though the participants haven’t intended to use that drug. This unintended use of opioids is contributing to the crisis of fatal overdoses. “Fentanyl is showing up in stimulant use, particularly meth and cocaine, which is very sad because sometimes folks are not intentionally wanting to use an opioid,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco is slated to receive about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11949888/walgreens-pay-san-francisco-230-million-opioid-crisis\">$352 million over the next 15 years\u003c/a> through settlements with a number of companies, including Walgreens, CVS, Teva, Allergan and others for their role in the opioid epidemic. The funding is earmarked to address problems that have come out of the opioid crisis, from increased overdoses to dangerous street-level activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of that, Mayor London Breed is proposing to use $56.2 million of the settlement in the 2023–24 fiscal year budget and $46.5 million in the 2024–25 budget. Of that, \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-06/FY%2023-25%20HC%20Memo%20Fourth%20Meeting%20-%206-2-23%20.pdf\">$2 million (PDF)\u003c/a> would be allocated each year for contingency management programs to address stimulant use. These programs use an incentive and positive-reinforcement-based approach to curbing addictions, primarily for stimulants like meth or cocaine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Wayne Rafus, manager of contingency management at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation\"]‘Fentanyl is showing up in stimulant use, particularly meth and cocaine, which is very sad because sometimes folks are not intentionally wanting to use an opioid.’[/pullquote]San Francisco is simultaneously using settlement funding to increase access to opioid treatments, such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11945418/san-francisco-has-doubled-participants-of-this-opioid-treatment-heres-why\">buprenorphine, suboxone\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11941618/sfs-mobile-clinics-made-opioid-treatment-more-accessible-during-the-pandemic-but-will-they-stay\">methadone\u003c/a> medications, as well as abstinence-based programs and residential facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But unlike opioids, there are no federally approved medications to treat stimulant use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, contingency management has been employed by \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6768930/\">Veterans Affairs\u003c/a> for many years as one option that’s shown success; the agency was the first to complete a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3986725/\">large-scale implementation\u003c/a> of the approach. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376871618300784\">2018 study\u003c/a> found that, on average, VA patients attended more than half of their counseling sessions, and 91% of participants tested negative for the targeted substance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33507776/\">study in 2021\u003c/a> meanwhile found that contingency management showed “long-term benefit in reducing objective indices of drug use, above and beyond other active, evidence-based treatments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954572\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/20230623-sfaidsfoundation-023-bl/\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11954572\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-023-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A hand holds a brightly colored flyer that reads 'PROP'\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-023-BL.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-023-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-023-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-023-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-023-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rick Andrews holds a flyer with information about PROP, or the Positive Reinforcement Opportunity Project. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Rick Andrews, director of contingency management at SFAF, said that some participants are also enrolled in Alcoholics Anonymous, Crystal Meth Anonymous, other 12-step recovery programs or additional counseling while they are at PROP. Graduates often transfer to longer-term treatment after they complete the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have folks in CMA, AA and other programs working in conjunction with us as well,” said Andrews. “And folks who are not ready for abstinence, what’s great for them is that they can come here, feel like they are trying to do something, and be around people. They get something to eat, counseling and community, even if they aren’t ready now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Rick Andrews, director of contingency management, San Francisco AIDS Foundation\"]‘[F]olks who are not ready for abstinence, what’s great for them is that they can come here, feel like they are trying to do something, and be around people. They get something to eat, counseling and community, even if they aren’t ready now.’[/pullquote]Addiction experts say that tackling meth and cocaine addiction is crucial as the city works to address its overdose crisis, because those substances also appear in a large portion of fatal accidental overdoses, according to data from the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Meth is a big, big problem that gets overshadowed by opioids, but a significant percentage of people who are using drugs in our streets are using meth, either alone or in combination with other drugs,” said Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who has advocated for expanding approaches to treat meth addiction. “Contingency management is an incredibly important and impactful approach or treatment for meth addiction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How contingency management can lead to big changes\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At PROP 4 All and PROP, a similar program at SFAF that focuses on the gay male community, participants attend weekly group sessions in a calmingly dim conference room off Market Street. They discuss their use patterns, challenges and goals for how they want to adjust their use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also are given the option to take a drug test, and if it comes back negative, they can earn a cash incentive in the form of gift cards. After the 12-week program, participants often transition to longer-term counseling and care, depending on their specific goals and needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Participants can earn up to $330 in gift cards, if they test negative throughout the entire 12-week program. The cash may start as a draw, but leaders and participants said that what keeps people coming is having a new community, finding stability and getting connected to other services, like housing or longer-term treatment programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tyrone Clifford was a participant at PROP before becoming a manager of contingency management at the program. On his 21st birthday, just before moving to San Francisco, he found out he was HIV-positive and was told he had maybe two years to live. Clifford then began partying and using more drugs in an effort to cope with the diagnosis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after he far outlived the prognosis, his doctor encouraged him to reevaluate his relationship to meth. Clifford had been thinking about changing his drug use, so the encouragement spurred him to give contingency management a try.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954578\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/20230623-sfaidsfoundation-003-bl/\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954578 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-003-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A middle-aged Black man in jeans and a flannel shirt sits on a chair in an empty conference room with stacked chairs behind him. He appears to have stud earrings in both ears, and has a bald head and a mostly white goatee and mustache.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-003-BL.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-003-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-003-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-003-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-003-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tyrone Clifford, manager of contingency management at PROP, sits in the San Francisco AIDS Foundation offices in San Francisco on June 23, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The weekly visits and community he built helped Clifford keep his promises to himself, he said, and gave him a chance to stabilize from the everyday chaos that heavy meth use can bring. The substance can keep users up for days, straining sleep and eating schedules, and lead to other physical and emotional harm in the long run.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Being in the group, it helped me to stay balanced, you know, helping to appreciate the lives of others and to understand that we’re all doing the same thing. But we all have different reasons for why we do it. We’re all looking to do it to help us get through different things,” said Clifford.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The need for more treatment programs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In coordination with UCSF and nonprofits, the San Francisco Department of Public Health provides contingency management at the \u003ca href=\"https://citywide.ucsf.edu/stimulant-treatment-outpatient-program-stop\">Citywide Clinic’s Stimulant Treatment Outpatient Program\u003c/a>, the \u003ca href=\"https://psych.ucsf.edu/news/office-based-buprenorphine-induction-clinics-work-highlighted-national-magazine\">Office-Based Buprenorphine Induction Clinic\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/reports/october-2022/overdose-prevention-plan-2022\">Project HOUDINI LINK\u003c/a> (Hospital Opioid Use Disorder treatment INItiation and LINKage to care).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To date, the expansion of San Francisco’s contingency management programs has come from Prop. C, which passed in 2018 to provide funds to address homelessness. But the Department of Public Health’s \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/reports/october-2022/overdose-prevention-plan-2022\">overdose prevention plan\u003c/a> suggests that these programs won’t be sufficiently utilized without sustained longer-term funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, San Francisco is looking to add at least one additional contingency management program and increase the number of overall participants by 25% in the next four years, according to the overdose prevention plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those efforts are paralleled by a statewide initiative. In 2021, California became the first state to cover contingency management through Medi-Cal, potentially opening doors for people who may have struggled to afford residential treatment or other treatment options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state also allocated $58.5 million to pilot contingency management programs in \u003ca href=\"https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/Pages/DMC-ODS-Contingency-Management.aspx\">nearly two dozen other California counties\u003c/a>. Each patient receives a maximum of $599 over six months, after which they are referred for follow-up recovery programs and services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, it can be hard to find or even know about contingency management program options. Many people at PROP, for example, arrive through word of mouth, court-ordered treatment or referrals from doctors, like Clifford did. But advocates say it’s an under-utilized approach that more people could benefit from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s particularly concerning for experts looking at the overlap between homelessness and substance-use disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco)\"]‘The state has been really slow in rolling out these pilot programs … but we need to do whatever we can to help people suffering from meth addiction.’[/pullquote]\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11953216/lack-of-affordable-housing-is-driving-older-californians-into-homelessness\">Meth is almost three times more commonly used than nonprescribed opioids among people experiencing homelessness in California\u003c/a>, a recent UCSF study found. Of a representative sample of unhoused adults in the state, 31% reported regular use of methamphetamines, 11% used nonprescribed opioids such as fentanyl, and 3% reported cocaine, the study found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Methamphetamine kept them awake and alert, but it obviously comes at a big cost,” said Dr. Margot Kushel, lead author of the study, which also found that about 20% of participants wanted and were ready to enter drug treatment but could not access it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener stressed that the efforts to expand contingency management need to accelerate to meet the current and urgent need. PROP, as just one example, has 12 people on its waitlist right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2021, he authored \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11854373/state-lawmakers-move-to-expand-effective-but-controversial-treatment-for-meth-addiction\">a bill that aimed to expand contingency management\u003c/a>, SB 110, but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it to instead launch the current statewide pilot program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state has been really slow in rolling out these pilot programs,” Wiener said, “but we need to do whatever we can to help people suffering from meth addiction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story has been updated.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Fentanyl and other \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11948062/newsom-taps-chp-national-guard-to-fight-san-franciscos-fentanyl-crisis\">opioids dominate discussions\u003c/a> about the overdose crisis on the West Coast. But stimulants, like methamphetamine and cocaine, are often involved in fatal drug overdoses, too, especially when they are mixed with opioids like fentanyl, intentionally or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why San Francisco city leaders are looking to increase access to treatment for stimulant use with the help of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11949888/walgreens-pay-san-francisco-230-million-opioid-crisis\">millions of dollars\u003c/a> the city is receiving through settlements with opioid manufacturers and pharmacies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Wayne Rafus is a manager at a program at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF) that helps people change their meth or cocaine use, called PROP 4 All. He said that about 40% of the time, fentanyl is showing up in voluntary drug tests — even though the participants haven’t intended to use that drug. This unintended use of opioids is contributing to the crisis of fatal overdoses. “Fentanyl is showing up in stimulant use, particularly meth and cocaine, which is very sad because sometimes folks are not intentionally wanting to use an opioid,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco is slated to receive about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11949888/walgreens-pay-san-francisco-230-million-opioid-crisis\">$352 million over the next 15 years\u003c/a> through settlements with a number of companies, including Walgreens, CVS, Teva, Allergan and others for their role in the opioid epidemic. The funding is earmarked to address problems that have come out of the opioid crisis, from increased overdoses to dangerous street-level activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of that, Mayor London Breed is proposing to use $56.2 million of the settlement in the 2023–24 fiscal year budget and $46.5 million in the 2024–25 budget. Of that, \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-06/FY%2023-25%20HC%20Memo%20Fourth%20Meeting%20-%206-2-23%20.pdf\">$2 million (PDF)\u003c/a> would be allocated each year for contingency management programs to address stimulant use. These programs use an incentive and positive-reinforcement-based approach to curbing addictions, primarily for stimulants like meth or cocaine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Fentanyl is showing up in stimulant use, particularly meth and cocaine, which is very sad because sometimes folks are not intentionally wanting to use an opioid.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>San Francisco is simultaneously using settlement funding to increase access to opioid treatments, such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11945418/san-francisco-has-doubled-participants-of-this-opioid-treatment-heres-why\">buprenorphine, suboxone\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11941618/sfs-mobile-clinics-made-opioid-treatment-more-accessible-during-the-pandemic-but-will-they-stay\">methadone\u003c/a> medications, as well as abstinence-based programs and residential facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But unlike opioids, there are no federally approved medications to treat stimulant use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, contingency management has been employed by \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6768930/\">Veterans Affairs\u003c/a> for many years as one option that’s shown success; the agency was the first to complete a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3986725/\">large-scale implementation\u003c/a> of the approach. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376871618300784\">2018 study\u003c/a> found that, on average, VA patients attended more than half of their counseling sessions, and 91% of participants tested negative for the targeted substance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33507776/\">study in 2021\u003c/a> meanwhile found that contingency management showed “long-term benefit in reducing objective indices of drug use, above and beyond other active, evidence-based treatments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954572\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/20230623-sfaidsfoundation-023-bl/\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11954572\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-023-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A hand holds a brightly colored flyer that reads 'PROP'\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-023-BL.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-023-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-023-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-023-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-023-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rick Andrews holds a flyer with information about PROP, or the Positive Reinforcement Opportunity Project. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Rick Andrews, director of contingency management at SFAF, said that some participants are also enrolled in Alcoholics Anonymous, Crystal Meth Anonymous, other 12-step recovery programs or additional counseling while they are at PROP. Graduates often transfer to longer-term treatment after they complete the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have folks in CMA, AA and other programs working in conjunction with us as well,” said Andrews. “And folks who are not ready for abstinence, what’s great for them is that they can come here, feel like they are trying to do something, and be around people. They get something to eat, counseling and community, even if they aren’t ready now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘[F]olks who are not ready for abstinence, what’s great for them is that they can come here, feel like they are trying to do something, and be around people. They get something to eat, counseling and community, even if they aren’t ready now.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Addiction experts say that tackling meth and cocaine addiction is crucial as the city works to address its overdose crisis, because those substances also appear in a large portion of fatal accidental overdoses, according to data from the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Meth is a big, big problem that gets overshadowed by opioids, but a significant percentage of people who are using drugs in our streets are using meth, either alone or in combination with other drugs,” said Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who has advocated for expanding approaches to treat meth addiction. “Contingency management is an incredibly important and impactful approach or treatment for meth addiction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How contingency management can lead to big changes\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At PROP 4 All and PROP, a similar program at SFAF that focuses on the gay male community, participants attend weekly group sessions in a calmingly dim conference room off Market Street. They discuss their use patterns, challenges and goals for how they want to adjust their use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also are given the option to take a drug test, and if it comes back negative, they can earn a cash incentive in the form of gift cards. After the 12-week program, participants often transition to longer-term counseling and care, depending on their specific goals and needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Participants can earn up to $330 in gift cards, if they test negative throughout the entire 12-week program. The cash may start as a draw, but leaders and participants said that what keeps people coming is having a new community, finding stability and getting connected to other services, like housing or longer-term treatment programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tyrone Clifford was a participant at PROP before becoming a manager of contingency management at the program. On his 21st birthday, just before moving to San Francisco, he found out he was HIV-positive and was told he had maybe two years to live. Clifford then began partying and using more drugs in an effort to cope with the diagnosis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after he far outlived the prognosis, his doctor encouraged him to reevaluate his relationship to meth. Clifford had been thinking about changing his drug use, so the encouragement spurred him to give contingency management a try.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954578\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/20230623-sfaidsfoundation-003-bl/\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954578 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-003-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A middle-aged Black man in jeans and a flannel shirt sits on a chair in an empty conference room with stacked chairs behind him. He appears to have stud earrings in both ears, and has a bald head and a mostly white goatee and mustache.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-003-BL.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-003-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-003-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-003-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/20230623-SFAIDSFoundation-003-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tyrone Clifford, manager of contingency management at PROP, sits in the San Francisco AIDS Foundation offices in San Francisco on June 23, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The weekly visits and community he built helped Clifford keep his promises to himself, he said, and gave him a chance to stabilize from the everyday chaos that heavy meth use can bring. The substance can keep users up for days, straining sleep and eating schedules, and lead to other physical and emotional harm in the long run.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Being in the group, it helped me to stay balanced, you know, helping to appreciate the lives of others and to understand that we’re all doing the same thing. But we all have different reasons for why we do it. We’re all looking to do it to help us get through different things,” said Clifford.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The need for more treatment programs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In coordination with UCSF and nonprofits, the San Francisco Department of Public Health provides contingency management at the \u003ca href=\"https://citywide.ucsf.edu/stimulant-treatment-outpatient-program-stop\">Citywide Clinic’s Stimulant Treatment Outpatient Program\u003c/a>, the \u003ca href=\"https://psych.ucsf.edu/news/office-based-buprenorphine-induction-clinics-work-highlighted-national-magazine\">Office-Based Buprenorphine Induction Clinic\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/reports/october-2022/overdose-prevention-plan-2022\">Project HOUDINI LINK\u003c/a> (Hospital Opioid Use Disorder treatment INItiation and LINKage to care).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To date, the expansion of San Francisco’s contingency management programs has come from Prop. C, which passed in 2018 to provide funds to address homelessness. But the Department of Public Health’s \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/reports/october-2022/overdose-prevention-plan-2022\">overdose prevention plan\u003c/a> suggests that these programs won’t be sufficiently utilized without sustained longer-term funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, San Francisco is looking to add at least one additional contingency management program and increase the number of overall participants by 25% in the next four years, according to the overdose prevention plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those efforts are paralleled by a statewide initiative. In 2021, California became the first state to cover contingency management through Medi-Cal, potentially opening doors for people who may have struggled to afford residential treatment or other treatment options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state also allocated $58.5 million to pilot contingency management programs in \u003ca href=\"https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/Pages/DMC-ODS-Contingency-Management.aspx\">nearly two dozen other California counties\u003c/a>. Each patient receives a maximum of $599 over six months, after which they are referred for follow-up recovery programs and services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, it can be hard to find or even know about contingency management program options. Many people at PROP, for example, arrive through word of mouth, court-ordered treatment or referrals from doctors, like Clifford did. But advocates say it’s an under-utilized approach that more people could benefit from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s particularly concerning for experts looking at the overlap between homelessness and substance-use disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘The state has been really slow in rolling out these pilot programs … but we need to do whatever we can to help people suffering from meth addiction.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11953216/lack-of-affordable-housing-is-driving-older-californians-into-homelessness\">Meth is almost three times more commonly used than nonprescribed opioids among people experiencing homelessness in California\u003c/a>, a recent UCSF study found. Of a representative sample of unhoused adults in the state, 31% reported regular use of methamphetamines, 11% used nonprescribed opioids such as fentanyl, and 3% reported cocaine, the study found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Methamphetamine kept them awake and alert, but it obviously comes at a big cost,” said Dr. Margot Kushel, lead author of the study, which also found that about 20% of participants wanted and were ready to enter drug treatment but could not access it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener stressed that the efforts to expand contingency management need to accelerate to meet the current and urgent need. PROP, as just one example, has 12 people on its waitlist right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2021, he authored \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11854373/state-lawmakers-move-to-expand-effective-but-controversial-treatment-for-meth-addiction\">a bill that aimed to expand contingency management\u003c/a>, SB 110, but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it to instead launch the current statewide pilot program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state has been really slow in rolling out these pilot programs,” Wiener said, “but we need to do whatever we can to help people suffering from meth addiction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story has been updated.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "newsoms-plan-to-crack-down-on-fentanyl-in-san-francisco-could-cause-more-harm-than-good-some-addiction-experts-say",
"title": "Newsom's Plan to Crack Down on Fentanyl in San Francisco Could Cause More Harm Than Good, Some Addiction Experts Say",
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"headTitle": "Newsom’s Plan to Crack Down on Fentanyl in San Francisco Could Cause More Harm Than Good, Some Addiction Experts Say | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor London Breed are doubling down on law enforcement to get a grip on drug-related challenges in San Francisco’s city core.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Addiction experts, however, say that the city and state’s latest effort repeats tough-on-crime tactics and rhetoric that have not succeeded in curbing drug dealing in the long run, and at times have led to spikes in overdose deaths when the intervention ends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unfortunately, these crackdowns on the drug supply don’t work as well as we want them to,” said Daniel Ciccarone, professor in addiction medicine at UCSF. “When we say we want to crack down on the supply and get more people into treatment, if you don’t do that carefully, the only thing you do is add to stigma and barriers to treatment. That is what the evidence shows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Increased police presence could initially deter drug use and dealing. Officials did not state how long the operation would last, however, and that could also lead to other unintended consequences, said Vitka Eisen, CEO of the nonprofit HealthRight 360.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you increase enforcement on the street and pressure the supply side, what often results is much more chaotic drug use patterns in which people are more desperate to get drugs, prices go up, they use in a less safe way,” Eisen said. “So one of the unintended consequences of increased enforcement is increased overdoses.”[aside postID=news_11948062 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/04/RS28905_GettyImages-678967-qut-1020x701.jpg']Starting May 1, Newsom is sending additional California Highway Patrol officers into the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, where the majority of overdose deaths have occurred in recent years. There are currently 75 CHP officers assigned to the area, and that could go up to 84, according to CHP officials. Fourteen members of the California National Guard will also work to train San Francisco police in identifying and responding to potential trafficking cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom and Breed stated that their focus in San Francisco is around drug dealers and traffickers, not drug users themselves. But there is often overlap in those populations, according to addiction researchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a false dichotomy here in terms of people who are drug merchants and people who are using drugs. You know, it can often be the same people. The people who use drugs might actually be selling or trading drugs as well,” said Alex Kral, an epidemiologist at the independent nonprofit research institute RTI International. “If you’re simply doing an intervention to try to remove people who sell drugs, you’re actually also hurting people who use drugs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both experts point to how, earlier this year, overdose rates in San Francisco rapidly increased shortly following the closure of the Tenderloin Center, a drop-in social services center and safe consumption site that operated for 11 months. Trained \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/data/reducing-fatal-and-non-fatal-overdoses-tenderloin#overdoses-reversed-at-the-tenderloin-center\">staff at the facility reversed 333 overdoses in 11 months\u003c/a> before the facility closed, according to city data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Tenderloin Center opened in January 2022 as part of a wider intervention for the neighborhood that aimed to curb outdoor drug dealing and use, clean city sidewalks, get more people into drug treatment and reduce overdose deaths. The temporary emergency operation lasted 90 days and the center stayed open for 11 months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Without a replacement (for the Tenderloin Center), and then to instead focus on policing people, it’s no surprise to me that there are more overdoses this year than last year,” Kral said. “There’s no surprise to me that things will get worse with this approach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Residents say help is needed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s intervention comes alongside serious concerns about safety in the Tenderloin and in SoMa and complaints about street conditions that some feel are out of control. Residents who spoke to KQED said they are desperate for solutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jacob Thornton, 32, lives at Trinity Place in SoMa and said he has been held up at knifepoint twice outside his building. He supports the additional law enforcement resources coming into the neighborhood.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Vitka Eisen, CEO, HealthRight 360\"]‘[O]ne of the unintended consequences of increased enforcement is increased overdoses.’[/pullquote]“The police recommendation to me when I got a knife pulled on me was to not walk outside and not be on the sidewalk. I mean, wow,” said Thornton outside his building on May 1, the day the latest operation was set to begin. “I have not seen any National Guard yet, but I’m very excited for them to come if they are coming, because this block in particular is just absolutely wild and no one seems to do anything about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Haley Hampton splits her time between her home in the city of Richmond, where her kids and grandmother live, and a room on Jones Street in the Tenderloin to be closer to her son, who was recently released from prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She too welcomed the additional attention to the neighborhood, but was skeptical that it would lead to lasting change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m out here every night making sure that no one is in the corner overdosing or drowning from their alcohol,” she said. Sending in CHP “can make a difference only if they include the community that it wants to change. People have their vices, but we don’t give them a chance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hampton regularly shows friends and neighbors in the area how to administer Narcan, a naloxone nasal spray that can reverse an opioid overdose, and said that the community has learned to look out for itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One needs to take only a 20-minute stroll in the Tenderloin to know there’s something amiss. And I understand the political and administrative and even civic call for law and order,” said Ciccarone. “But the drug supply is unbelievably resilient in America. You try to curtail it like a snake and you cut off its head, but it just grows two heads.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How other places are responding to fentanyl\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Places outside California are now trying strategies to reduce the demand for illicit drugs. Canada, which is also grappling with fentanyl, opened ATM-like machines that can dispense safe amounts of opioids in controlled settings, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The machines helped reduce overdose deaths and drug dealing by regulating what is in the supply, and by limiting the demand for users to buy drugs illegally. The Canadian government in 2021 \u003ca href=\"https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/news/2021/03/government-of-canada-supports-expansion-of-innovative-safer-supply-project-to-operate-in-four-cities-across-canada.html\">expanded the service program to four cities\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 200 safe consumption sites also operate globally in more than a dozen countries, including France, Denmark, Canada, Australia, Switzerland and others. The facilities offer a space where people can use drugs and trained staff can reverse an overdose if it occurs, while also connecting people with other health and social services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York City has found early success with reversing overdoses and reducing public drug use by operating two safe consumption sites at a private nonprofit called OnPoint NYC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, Rhode Island became the first state to legalize supervised drug consumption services, and now has a state-approved plan to open a site in Providence in early 2024. The state has allocated $2.6 million from opioid settlement funds to pay for the first year of operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, Breed has said she supports opening safe consumption sites and has support from the Board of Supervisors. But last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation that would have allowed sites to operate on a pilot basis in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco plans to move forward with opening a safe consumption site nonetheless, using a model borrowed from New York City, where a nonprofit pays for and operates the overdose prevention services.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Alex Kral, epidemiologist, RTI International\"]‘Do you want to spend your money on jails … or do you want to spend your money on these sites that can actually help people?’[/pullquote]But those efforts have hit delays because the nonprofits that want to provide safe consumption say they can’t afford to do so without help from the city. San Francisco has a projected $130 million in funding coming in through settlements with pharmacies, drug manufacturers and distributors for their role in the overdose crisis, and the money is earmarked specifically for overdose prevention, such as purchasing and distributing Narcan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City Attorney David Chiu has not yet agreed to use the funds for supervised consumption sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not only is the U.S. not up to international standards on overdose prevention, but San Francisco and California as a whole are not up to national standards,” Ciccarone said, referring to the steps that some states are taking to address fentanyl overdoses and street-level problems related to drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/can-a-new-san-francisco-drug-testing-program-help-keep-users-safe/article_f289ddaa-4a53-11ed-a8ae-879e236a7de2.html\">San Francisco has been piloting a drug testing program\u003c/a>, but on a small scale. The idea is to offer people a chance to test what is in their supply and open conversations about safer use and even treatment. The city has also ramped up distribution of Narcan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we need here is leadership, not complaining and pointing fingers and draconian responses. We need courage, which combines both the heart-centered approach and bold stances that are not same old, same old,” he said. “That doesn’t work in the fentanyl epidemic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A rock and a hard place\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The California Legislature is currently debating nearly 30 bills introduced this year that aim to combat the fentanyl crisis as overdose deaths statewide have also ticked up. Some of the bills seek to ramp up prison sentences for fentanyl dealers, while others focus on education and prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents the SoMa neighborhood, has repeatedly called for increased police presence to deter drug use and dealing.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11947448,science_1982214,news_11945418\"]“San Francisco is on the precipice of a potentially catastrophic police staffing shortage, and there are too many public safety problems we’ll be helpless to solve if we don’t start solving SFPD’s understaffing crisis first,” Dorsey stated earlier this year when \u003ca href=\"https://sfbos.org/sites/default/files/23.01.23_Dorsey%20pushes%20police%20recruitment%20bonus%20matching%20policy%20to%20avoid%20%E2%80%98catastrophic%E2%80%99%20SFPD%20staffing%20shortage.pdf\">advocating for police recruitment bonuses (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju said he fears that would lead to negative outcomes similar to the crack cocaine and heroin epidemics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know from 50 years of the war on drugs that the people who are likely to be targeted by any forthcoming operations will be in low-income and Black and Brown communities, including those who have been trafficked or coerced into the drug trade under threat to themselves and their families,” Raju said in a press release after the new plan was announced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Providing housing and places where people can leave the street for safer settings to use drugs can be closer to the win-win politicians are looking for, Kral said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s an economic incentive, too, Kral added. His research on local public health and public safety spending estimates that \u003ca href=\"https://www.rti.org/impact/cost-benefit-analysis-opening-safe-consumption-site-san-francisco\">the city could save a minimum of $2.6 million\u003c/a> if it were to offer places where people could use drugs more safely and out of the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do you want to spend your money on jails,” he said, “or do you want to spend your money on these sites that can actually help people?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Newsom's Plan to Crack Down on Fentanyl in San Francisco Could Cause More Harm Than Good, Some Addiction Experts Say | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor London Breed are doubling down on law enforcement to get a grip on drug-related challenges in San Francisco’s city core.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Addiction experts, however, say that the city and state’s latest effort repeats tough-on-crime tactics and rhetoric that have not succeeded in curbing drug dealing in the long run, and at times have led to spikes in overdose deaths when the intervention ends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unfortunately, these crackdowns on the drug supply don’t work as well as we want them to,” said Daniel Ciccarone, professor in addiction medicine at UCSF. “When we say we want to crack down on the supply and get more people into treatment, if you don’t do that carefully, the only thing you do is add to stigma and barriers to treatment. That is what the evidence shows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Increased police presence could initially deter drug use and dealing. Officials did not state how long the operation would last, however, and that could also lead to other unintended consequences, said Vitka Eisen, CEO of the nonprofit HealthRight 360.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you increase enforcement on the street and pressure the supply side, what often results is much more chaotic drug use patterns in which people are more desperate to get drugs, prices go up, they use in a less safe way,” Eisen said. “So one of the unintended consequences of increased enforcement is increased overdoses.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Starting May 1, Newsom is sending additional California Highway Patrol officers into the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, where the majority of overdose deaths have occurred in recent years. There are currently 75 CHP officers assigned to the area, and that could go up to 84, according to CHP officials. Fourteen members of the California National Guard will also work to train San Francisco police in identifying and responding to potential trafficking cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom and Breed stated that their focus in San Francisco is around drug dealers and traffickers, not drug users themselves. But there is often overlap in those populations, according to addiction researchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a false dichotomy here in terms of people who are drug merchants and people who are using drugs. You know, it can often be the same people. The people who use drugs might actually be selling or trading drugs as well,” said Alex Kral, an epidemiologist at the independent nonprofit research institute RTI International. “If you’re simply doing an intervention to try to remove people who sell drugs, you’re actually also hurting people who use drugs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both experts point to how, earlier this year, overdose rates in San Francisco rapidly increased shortly following the closure of the Tenderloin Center, a drop-in social services center and safe consumption site that operated for 11 months. Trained \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/data/reducing-fatal-and-non-fatal-overdoses-tenderloin#overdoses-reversed-at-the-tenderloin-center\">staff at the facility reversed 333 overdoses in 11 months\u003c/a> before the facility closed, according to city data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Tenderloin Center opened in January 2022 as part of a wider intervention for the neighborhood that aimed to curb outdoor drug dealing and use, clean city sidewalks, get more people into drug treatment and reduce overdose deaths. The temporary emergency operation lasted 90 days and the center stayed open for 11 months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Without a replacement (for the Tenderloin Center), and then to instead focus on policing people, it’s no surprise to me that there are more overdoses this year than last year,” Kral said. “There’s no surprise to me that things will get worse with this approach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Residents say help is needed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s intervention comes alongside serious concerns about safety in the Tenderloin and in SoMa and complaints about street conditions that some feel are out of control. Residents who spoke to KQED said they are desperate for solutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jacob Thornton, 32, lives at Trinity Place in SoMa and said he has been held up at knifepoint twice outside his building. He supports the additional law enforcement resources coming into the neighborhood.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“The police recommendation to me when I got a knife pulled on me was to not walk outside and not be on the sidewalk. I mean, wow,” said Thornton outside his building on May 1, the day the latest operation was set to begin. “I have not seen any National Guard yet, but I’m very excited for them to come if they are coming, because this block in particular is just absolutely wild and no one seems to do anything about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Haley Hampton splits her time between her home in the city of Richmond, where her kids and grandmother live, and a room on Jones Street in the Tenderloin to be closer to her son, who was recently released from prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She too welcomed the additional attention to the neighborhood, but was skeptical that it would lead to lasting change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m out here every night making sure that no one is in the corner overdosing or drowning from their alcohol,” she said. Sending in CHP “can make a difference only if they include the community that it wants to change. People have their vices, but we don’t give them a chance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hampton regularly shows friends and neighbors in the area how to administer Narcan, a naloxone nasal spray that can reverse an opioid overdose, and said that the community has learned to look out for itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One needs to take only a 20-minute stroll in the Tenderloin to know there’s something amiss. And I understand the political and administrative and even civic call for law and order,” said Ciccarone. “But the drug supply is unbelievably resilient in America. You try to curtail it like a snake and you cut off its head, but it just grows two heads.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How other places are responding to fentanyl\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Places outside California are now trying strategies to reduce the demand for illicit drugs. Canada, which is also grappling with fentanyl, opened ATM-like machines that can dispense safe amounts of opioids in controlled settings, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The machines helped reduce overdose deaths and drug dealing by regulating what is in the supply, and by limiting the demand for users to buy drugs illegally. The Canadian government in 2021 \u003ca href=\"https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/news/2021/03/government-of-canada-supports-expansion-of-innovative-safer-supply-project-to-operate-in-four-cities-across-canada.html\">expanded the service program to four cities\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 200 safe consumption sites also operate globally in more than a dozen countries, including France, Denmark, Canada, Australia, Switzerland and others. The facilities offer a space where people can use drugs and trained staff can reverse an overdose if it occurs, while also connecting people with other health and social services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York City has found early success with reversing overdoses and reducing public drug use by operating two safe consumption sites at a private nonprofit called OnPoint NYC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, Rhode Island became the first state to legalize supervised drug consumption services, and now has a state-approved plan to open a site in Providence in early 2024. The state has allocated $2.6 million from opioid settlement funds to pay for the first year of operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, Breed has said she supports opening safe consumption sites and has support from the Board of Supervisors. But last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation that would have allowed sites to operate on a pilot basis in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco plans to move forward with opening a safe consumption site nonetheless, using a model borrowed from New York City, where a nonprofit pays for and operates the overdose prevention services.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But those efforts have hit delays because the nonprofits that want to provide safe consumption say they can’t afford to do so without help from the city. San Francisco has a projected $130 million in funding coming in through settlements with pharmacies, drug manufacturers and distributors for their role in the overdose crisis, and the money is earmarked specifically for overdose prevention, such as purchasing and distributing Narcan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City Attorney David Chiu has not yet agreed to use the funds for supervised consumption sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not only is the U.S. not up to international standards on overdose prevention, but San Francisco and California as a whole are not up to national standards,” Ciccarone said, referring to the steps that some states are taking to address fentanyl overdoses and street-level problems related to drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/can-a-new-san-francisco-drug-testing-program-help-keep-users-safe/article_f289ddaa-4a53-11ed-a8ae-879e236a7de2.html\">San Francisco has been piloting a drug testing program\u003c/a>, but on a small scale. The idea is to offer people a chance to test what is in their supply and open conversations about safer use and even treatment. The city has also ramped up distribution of Narcan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we need here is leadership, not complaining and pointing fingers and draconian responses. We need courage, which combines both the heart-centered approach and bold stances that are not same old, same old,” he said. “That doesn’t work in the fentanyl epidemic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A rock and a hard place\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The California Legislature is currently debating nearly 30 bills introduced this year that aim to combat the fentanyl crisis as overdose deaths statewide have also ticked up. Some of the bills seek to ramp up prison sentences for fentanyl dealers, while others focus on education and prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents the SoMa neighborhood, has repeatedly called for increased police presence to deter drug use and dealing.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“San Francisco is on the precipice of a potentially catastrophic police staffing shortage, and there are too many public safety problems we’ll be helpless to solve if we don’t start solving SFPD’s understaffing crisis first,” Dorsey stated earlier this year when \u003ca href=\"https://sfbos.org/sites/default/files/23.01.23_Dorsey%20pushes%20police%20recruitment%20bonus%20matching%20policy%20to%20avoid%20%E2%80%98catastrophic%E2%80%99%20SFPD%20staffing%20shortage.pdf\">advocating for police recruitment bonuses (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju said he fears that would lead to negative outcomes similar to the crack cocaine and heroin epidemics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know from 50 years of the war on drugs that the people who are likely to be targeted by any forthcoming operations will be in low-income and Black and Brown communities, including those who have been trafficked or coerced into the drug trade under threat to themselves and their families,” Raju said in a press release after the new plan was announced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Providing housing and places where people can leave the street for safer settings to use drugs can be closer to the win-win politicians are looking for, Kral said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s an economic incentive, too, Kral added. His research on local public health and public safety spending estimates that \u003ca href=\"https://www.rti.org/impact/cost-benefit-analysis-opening-safe-consumption-site-san-francisco\">the city could save a minimum of $2.6 million\u003c/a> if it were to offer places where people could use drugs more safely and out of the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do you want to spend your money on jails,” he said, “or do you want to spend your money on these sites that can actually help people?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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},
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
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"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
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"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
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"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"order": 1
},
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
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"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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},
"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
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"source": "pbs"
},
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