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'It's not fun anymore': Fentanyl users rush for treatment as drug deaths drop
Rehabs are seeing a surge in patients, and overdose fatalities are down. Users in San Francisco's Tenderloin say the drugs aren't as powerful.
| Source: David Sjostedt/The StandardDrug users who spoke to The Standard speculated that enforcement of dealing — which has amounted to nearly 1,300 arrests and the removal of 540 pounds of drugs since May 2023 — has forced a drop in purity. Gary McCoy, a spokesperson for San Francisco’s largest drug treatment nonprofit, HealthRIGHT 360, said his organization has also fixed staffing issues that caused patients to be turned away by raising salaries and investing in recruitment. Daniel Ciccarone, an addiction researcher at UC San Francisco, speculated that the decrease in fentanyl purity — and the corresponding decline in overdoses — may be traced to “supply shock” caused by the Sinaloa cartel’s apparent ban on the sale of the drug last year.
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