San Francisco – After height during the Kofid pandemic to a general healthy emergency, the deaths of an overdose of the drug in San Francisco decreased in 2024, according to the initial data collected by city health officials.
The office of the chief medical examiners recorded 586 fatal doses in San Francisco in the first 11 months of 2024. This is almost. 23 % decreaseOr 174 fewer deaths, compared to the first 11 months of 2023. In total, 810 people died due to excessive doses of drugs in 2023, the highest number in the city’s records.
Development reflects national data and at the state level that shows an overdose deaths. Temporary data from the Federal Centers to Combat Disease and Prevention indicate a 14.3 % decrease In excessive doses across California at the comparison of the 12 months that ended in July 2023 with the 12 months that ended in July 2024. Functional doses decreased by 16.9 % at the country level during that period, according to the numbers of the Disease Control Center.
Los Angeles health officials have not yet released the excessive excessive figures for 2024. But the latest data also showed progress: deaths from excessive doses of drugs and poisoning between 2022 and 2023, after years of historical increases, according to the Ministry of Los Angeles in public health. In 2023, the province recorded 3,092 fatal doses, a slight decrease from 3220 deaths in the previous year.
Public health experts in San Francisco attributed the decrease in fatal drug use in the city to the availability of naluxon on a large scale, a drug that usually sells under the name of the brand NARCAN that can quickly reflect the effects of opioid excessive doses, as well as poprinorphine and methadone, prescribed drugs that treat opium addiction in the long term.
“We are optimistic about our public health interventions began to see results in terms of saving lives,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, Director of the Ministry of Public Health in San Francisco.
Colfax said that the medical prescriptions of the metadon issued by the Ministry of Health increased by more than 30 % and the prescriptions of the poprinorphine by about 50 % last year. The department recently held a partnership with the “Night Navigator” team that works after darkness to provide treatment, including a A remote healthcare program This quickly connects people who misuse opioids with healthcare providers who can prescribe medications. The administration has registered more than 2,300 calls since the launch of the program in March.
San Francisco has added about 400 residential treatment to 2,200 sites in recent years and doubled the number of workers in the field of street care in the past two years, according to the Ministry of Public Health and the London Mayor’s Office.
Dr. Christopher Colwell, head of emergency medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and the Shock Center, said he witnessed a noticeable increase in the number of people open to accept treatment last year.
“I think that many patients realize, last year, than I saw, how dangerous the use of opioid materials, and watching their friends and colleagues die,” said Colwell. “I saw a lot of preparation at least this discussion, and I thought about it, more than a few years ago.”
Keith Humphrez, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, who studies addiction, described the numbers of 2024 as a “big deal”.
Humphrez said: “Because of the souls that are rescued, but also for the morale of every worker in the front lines, and every worker reduces damage, and every professional in treatment, and every police officer was despair that this would never improve.” “This is a big batch.”
San Francisco, just as many urban areas, recorded a sharp rise in fatal doses in the early years of the roaming epidemic, when government closure made it more difficult to treat the introduction of fentanel in the drug scene in the streets. For example, San Francisco calculated 259 fatal excess doses in 2018, when fentanel was first hit in the streets, 441 deaths in 2019. A year later, when the city actually closed to slow down the spread of Covid-19 and became more difficult in community awareness, the death of the overdose wandered to more than 720.
Humphrez said that the translation of the epidemic made it easy to treat some of the social factors behind addiction.
Humphrez said: “Everything was about Kofid terrible from the point of view of the drug. “This type of structure that helps people to recover, such as work, accountability, daily routine, and social obligations, all decreased.”
PREDER lost its presentation to his re -election in November before the non -profit executive authority Levi Strauss Daniel Laurie, a result of a large scale due to the frustration of voters due to displacement and drugs in the streets. However, Bold said that the recent decrease in excessive deaths in an overdose is a testimony of its management decision to take a “more difficult situation” against illegal drug use, and the merchants were arrested and assigned some users.
Last March, for example, she sponsored a successful poll to request a drug examination and treat them for people who receive the advantages of a boycott suspected of illegal drug.
Kulwell said that although last year numbers are a positive sign, the use of opioids still represents a serious problem. He stressed the importance of adding treatment options such as poprinorphine and metadon, which is more effective in the long term than the opposite medications of the overdose. Although he estimated the city’s efforts to invest in the family of treatment and housing, he said: “I do not go on a day when I do not feel that we need more.”
He and other experts said that it is very important for the city and Lurie to continue to invest in solutions, even with San Francisco a expected deficit in the budget worth $ 876 million. Lori pledged to announce a Ventanil emergency When he takes office on January 8 and “becomes harsh” on drug dealers.
“We have seen what could be useful, and we need to continue doing this,” Colwell said.