San Francisco hit with ‘tidal wave’ of overdose deaths

San Francisco is being engulfed by a “tidal wave” of overdoses with deadly fentanyl claiming 62 lives out of 71 total deaths from drug overdoses last month, according to grim statistics released by city’s Medical Examiner’s office.

The liberal Northern California city is in the midst of a crime, homeless and drugs crisis and the results were released on the same day as a new report which concluded “City hall is failing” its citizens.

The overdose figures also place San Francisco on course to break a 2020 record for total number of overdoses, when 712 people died according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“This tidal wave of fentanyl continues to overwhelm our communities,” Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco health department director, told the newspaper.

“The department recognizes that the tragic, continuing rise of overdose deaths in San Francisco is unacceptable and we want everyone to know we are responding with urgency and with our full attention.”

Colfax said his department plans to open 10 more “wellness hubs” where drug users can get treatment, but that model has drawn criticism after the controversial $22 million Tenderloin Linkage Center was shut down last December.

Critics said the center only created more problems and crime as addicts openly used drugs inside. City officials have said open use of narcotics in such areas was never technically legally allowed.

San Francisco health officials are scrambling to find ways to address the uptick in overdose deaths, pushing to make medications such as methadone and Narcan more available throughout the city.

However, former senior DEA special agent Michael Brown told The Post liberal policies are a part of the problem that has lead to the explosion of overdoses in cities across the country.

“At some point, you have to realize these drug reduction methods and allowing open-drug use is a complete and utter failure.

“These progressive harm-reduction programs say, ‘It’s OK to use fentanyl. We’ll help you use it safely. Come into my injection site location and we will give you Narcan.’ This isn’t a Lazarus moment. There is no safe way to use drugs and we have to come out and say fentanyl is deadly. Period,” said Brown, who is now global director of counter-narcotics technology at Rigaku Analytical Devices.

Open drug use continues at all hours in the Tenderloin area of San Francisco, with homeless addicts passing out on the streets overnight, who only move in the daytime when crews from local non-profits try to clean the streets in the early morning.

San Francisco residents said the drug and homelessness problem, and the exodus of businesses have contributed to the collapse of the once thriving Downtown area, according to a study released by TogetherSF and the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College.

“San Franciscans are pessimistic about the future of their city, with more than three-quarters of voters saying the City is headed down the ‘wrong track’.

“In recent surveys, voters cite housing affordability, homelessness, and crime as some of the most vexing problems facing the City,” the study said, placing the blame on City Hall.

The study also noted San Francisco lost 7.5% of its population in a two year period between 2020 and 2022, many more people than comparable urban areas such as Los Angeles, which lost only 1.1% of its population in the same time.

Brown said progressive policies which allow wellness hubs and harm-reduction programs only serve as incubators for drug traffickers.

“When you look at the Tenderloin, these have become controlled experimental groups for the cartel,” he said.

“When they have a new drug to test, they go to this open drug market because there isn’t going to be any interference from the police. They view addicts as limitless test rats who are willing to put something new in their arm if you tell them it’s the next best thing to get that high.”

Another drug that has been introduced into the pipeline is flurofentanyl— another synthetic drug that appears as a white crystalline solid, but has been blended into other drugs by traffickers.

Flurofentanyl — which has a side effect of slowing a user’s heart rate down and causing irregular breathing — was found in dozens of overdoses in San Francisco last year, according to the medical examiner’s office.

While San Francisco Mayor London Breed brought in the National Guard and California Highway Patrol officers to help combat trafficking and other drug-related crimes, critics said a lack of arrests and prosecution won’t deter addicts and drug-traffickers.

“As long as we have these liberal policies that think you can put your arms around a problem and just ‘hug’ it away, this will only continue to grow,” Brown said.

“All across the board, you see progressive policies in California, Colorado, Portland, Washington, New York that support harm reduction. That is like trying to train a rattlesnake not to bite you. It’s a political issue at this point and until the politics are resolved, the criminality won’t be resolved either.”