San Francisco hit another record high for drug overdoses in a Democratic city, with nearly 85 deaths last month — and residents say the alarming numbers are just more evidence that the city has turned into a “zombie apocalypse.”
The City by the Bay saw 84 deaths in August, with 66 of them involving the deadly drug fentanyl.
It tied January for the deadliest month since the city began tracking overdose deaths in early 2020.
This year is on pace to surpass 2020’s deaths, which hit a record high of 725, according to a report by San Francisco officials. More than 560 users have died this year and another 300 are expected to die by the end of the year.
“It’s crazy, it’s so sad here, it’s like a zombie apocalypse,” Georgia Taylor, 21, who is homeless and abuses fentanyl, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “You can’t help people who don’t want help.”
The drug crisis has become so normalized in the city that a man lay writhing on Mission Street for minutes before anyone realized he had overdosed.
San Francisco saw 84 deaths in August, with 66 of them involving the deadly drug fentanyl. Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
It was the second deadliest month of 2023, surpassing January by one. And 2023 is on pace to exceed 2020 deaths, which reached a record high of 725. Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Fellow drug addict Will Kretck — who was about to be exposed to fentanyl — was the one who noticed, ran over to the unconscious man and started CPR, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Someone help! Bring the Narcan!” Kretck, 39, screamed.
Another homeless man had rushed into his tent to grab a can and inject the man with an opioid reversal drug, saving him.
“That’s the fourth person I’ve saved in the last week and a half,” Kretck told the Chronicle. “I’m glad he wasn’t one of them who died. I’ve saved people and then I hear them die, and it just makes you cry.
“That might be me one day.”
Drug overdoses in San Francisco have risen steadily since 2017, peaking in 2020. They dropped by 85 in 2021 before rising again in 2022, according to the San Francisco government. David G. McIntyre
Open drug markets are the norm in the Democratic-led city and the streets are filled with addicts who overdose and walk around like zombies on the tranq. David G. McIntyre
Open drug markets are the norm in the Democratic-led city and the streets are filled with addicts who overdose and walk around like zombies on the tranq.
Kretck and Taylor hope to get clean again, but the former says it’s “really hard” to do.
“You could sell it on Catalina Island and people would take rafts to go there to buy it,” he told the Chronicle.
Drug overdoses in San Francisco have risen steadily since 2017, peaking in 2020. They dropped by 85 in 2021 before rising again in 2022, according to the San Francisco government.
San Francisco police have tried to disrupt drug markets in high-profile areas, such as the Tenderloin. Police have seized 100 pounds of fentanyl between June and September.
In addition, more than 1,000 people were arrested for using or selling narcotics, according to the police.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
