S.F. sees record overdose deaths, even as police seize millions of lethal fentanyl doses. What is happening?

However then, the truth units in.

“It’s not altering something,” she stated, sighing. “Persons are nonetheless dying, two a day. It’s not serving to.”

Greater than 630 individuals died of overdoses in San Francisco from January to the top of November, a brand new file and a staggering improve from 441 in all of 2019. Amid the wave of loss of life this spring, the San Francisco Police Division elevated the variety of officers centered on drug sellers within the Tenderloin — notably these promoting fentanyl to individuals like Stanphill’s 26-year-old son.

However the added give attention to the long-troubled neighborhood didn’t cease the surge of fatalities in 2020, most of which occurred in and around the Tenderloin. At the same time as police seized probably thousands and thousands of deadly doses of fentanyl — an opioid that may be 50 to 100 instances stronger than morphine — greater than 70% of the individuals who died had the drug of their system.

Overdoses killed greater than thrice as many individuals in San Francisco final 12 months as COVID-19, and the drug epidemic reveals no signal of slowing. Specialists are divided over the best way to management it. The difficulty has largely pitted police and federal authorities towards advocates for customers and a progressive new district lawyer, who favor remedy greater than enforcement.

Many fear that 2021 can be one other traditionally lethal 12 months, because the pandemic disrupts lives and fentanyl permeates the drug provide. Metropolis leaders agree San Francisco wants elevated assist from the federal authorities and extra strong drug remedy providers, however they disagree on how authorities ought to punish street-level sellers who typically come from out of city and are easily replaced after they’re arrested.

Within the backdrop is a nationwide reckoning over how police work together with weak communities, like homeless, mentally ailing and drug-addicted individuals. And the elevated name for providers comes as San Francisco faces a multimilliondollar funds deficit attributable to the pandemic, which is able to drive tough choices this 12 months on what sources get funded, and which get reduce.

As the town struggles to get a deal with on the fentanyl epidemic, Stanphill has watched her son slip additional into dependancy.

“We will’t simply stick Band-Aids on individuals,” she stated from her house in Roseville (Placer County). … We simply want extra assist. Extra accessible assist. Reasonably priced assist. And first rate assist.

“It’s my child,” she added.

Generally, Stanphill needs that her son was nonetheless utilizing simply heroin.

“As a result of when he was solely on heroin, I may form of talk with him,” she stated. “I might hear from him, I might see him, I may truly spend a day with him. … However the fentanyl has made him like a zombie.”

When he’s sober, Stanphill stated, her son with putting blue-green eyes is charming and type, with a fast humorousness. She stated his dependancy started when he was round 14 with Xanax that he received from different college students at college, which he took to calm his nervousness from being bullied. However after he began hanging with the improper crowd, his drug use rapidly escalated to cocaine, ecstasy, methamphetamine after which heroin.

Stanphill stated she has tried every part — from particular training sources for him in highschool, to greater than a dozen rehab providers, to medication-assisted remedy to even strolling across the Tenderloin on the lookout for him. She has reached the purpose the place she simply desires him to have constant entry to wash needles and a safer drug provide, till he’s able to strive kicking his dependancy once more.

“Fentanyl provides him that small reduction of escaping, and it’s so low-cost,” she stated. “It makes him really feel nothing.”

An individual can die from simply 2 milligrams of fentanyl, a fraction of the deadly dose for heroin. The potent opioid is a significant cause that 2020 was in all probability the deadliest year for overdoses in recorded historical past, in keeping with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. In accordance with the San Francisco health worker, 453 of the 636 individuals who died of overdoses from January to the top of November had fentanyl of their system.

That’s why the San Francisco Police Division is stepping up arrests of those that promote the drug, no matter how a lot they’re carrying, Chief Invoice Scott stated. In accordance with the Police Division, officers made 600 arrests for drug gross sales within the Tenderloin and seized 192.2 ounces of fentanyl in 2020. That compares with 522 drug-related arrests and 43.8 ounces seized in 2019. Notably, the Tenderloin narcotics unit was suspended firstly of the pandemic, which led to fewer arrests from March to Might.

“It doesn’t take a complete lot of fentanyl to kill,” Scott stated. “Had we not confiscated over (192.2 ounces) of fentanyl … one has to assume what that might have executed when it comes to having much more overdoses.”

To make a measurable distinction on the streets, Scott stated, all ranges of legislation enforcement — together with District Lawyer Chesa Boudin — have to ship a transparent message that folks can be punished in the event that they break the legislation. Whereas critics have accused Boudin of going simple on these accused of drug crimes, he harassed that he prosecutes practically 80% of the drug circumstances which might be delivered to his workplace. That compares with the 88% that his predecessor, George Gascón, who was additionally criticized for being simple on drug sellers, stated he prosecuted.

The district lawyer says most of what’s offered to him are low-level sellers with small quantities of medication, who’re changed on the streets as quickly as they’re arrested.

“In relation to efficient use of legislation enforcement sources … taking 0.4 grams of suspected fentanyl off the streets in an operation that in all probability value taxpayers many hundreds of {dollars}, after we don’t have remedy on demand, after we don’t have secure consumption websites, isn’t an efficient strategy to stop overdoses,” Boudin stated.

Tracey Helton Mitchell, an overdose prevention advocate who has been sober for 22 years, stated the town’s remedy providers have dwindled, even because the demand has grown.

She stated somebody like Stanphill’s son wants a number of providers which might be exhausting to come back by, or don’t exist, in San Francisco: Protected and supportive housing; outreach employees who can preserve tabs on him; a 24-hour drop-in middle the place he can go anytime he wants assist; a secure consumption website, the place he can use medicine round nurses who can save him if he overdoses.

The state is engaged on laws to allow San Francisco to open a safe consumption site, and the town is engaged on a 24/7 drop-in middle. However each of these issues will in all probability take years to implement. In the meantime, she stated, the pandemic has exacerbated the disaster by isolating individuals from their communities, which they typically depend on for assist in the event that they overdose.

“We’re providing individuals issues, however are they the issues that they’re asking for?” Helton stated. “Are we giving individuals the instruments they should transition out of that life-style? I might argue no.”

The police chief and district lawyer agree that San Francisco falls brief in relation to sources for individuals scuffling with dependancy. However till it bolsters its providers, they disagree on what needs to be executed within the interim: Boudin says the police ought to arrest individuals with “kilos not crumbs,” however Scott says that’s not going to assist when persons are dying from sheer milligrams of fentanyl.

“What’s taking place on our streets … is individuals promoting crumbs,” Scott stated. “And people crumbs are killing individuals. Actually.”

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Stanphill has misplaced monitor of what number of instances her son has overdosed for the reason that first time she discovered him at 16, wedged between the bathroom and bathtub in her Santa Monica house.

He spent practically two months within the hospital final summer time on life assist after being hit by a automobile, after which with a extreme an infection in his coronary heart. Stanphill thought that she would lastly be capable to get by to him after that episode — however, as a substitute, he left for the Tenderloin simply two days after being discharged.

Now she hears from him solely sporadically, and the silence in between is harrowing.

“Each time I see the (overdose) numbers on the information, I’m like ‘OK, is he useless someplace?’” she stated. “Do I’ve to name the coroners once more? Ought to I name the hospitals? Have they got any unidentified our bodies?”

Stanphill is so pissed off by San Francisco’s sputtering response to the disaster that generally she imagines herself as a midnight vigilante, sneaking into the Tenderloin to take down the drug sellers herself.

She desires of stealing her son away from the neighborhood, and bringing him someplace secure, like a cabin within the woods the place she will help him heal among the many bushes and open air.

However she additionally is aware of the cruel, relentless actuality of his dependancy.

“He can’t simply give up. It’s simpler stated than executed,” she stated. “I nonetheless have hope. I all the time have hope. However with every passing day it will get slimmer and slimmer.”

Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle employees author. E-mail: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani