San Francisco Contends With a Different Sort of Epidemic: Drug Deaths

More people died from overdoses than from the coronavirus in San Francisco last year. Some think the toll, tied to homelessness, should force the city to re-examine its approach to illicit drugs.

SAN FRANCISCO — The drugs killed them in plain view — in front of the public library, at the spot on Powell Street where the cable car used to turn around. Others died alone in single-room apartments or in camping tents pitched on the pavement, each death adding to an overdose crisis that is one of the worst in the nation. Drug overdoses rose across the country during the coronavirus pandemic. But in San Francisco, they skyrocketed, claiming 713 lives last year, more than double the 257 people here who died of the virus in 2020. San Francisco’s overdose death rate is higher than West Virginia, the state with the most severe crisis, and three times the rates of New York and Los Angeles. Although overdose data from the past year is incomplete, one researcher found that San Francisco — where overdoses have more than tripled since 2017 — has more overdoses per capita than any major city on the West Coast.