SAN FRANCISCO – Mike Enright overdosed three times in December. A long-time heroin user, he said he did not know the limit after switching to fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid.
“It hits you much harder,” said Mr. Enright, sitting on the sidewalk, not far from the tent where he sleeps.
For a long time on the east coast, fentanyl is now causing a rapid rise in overdose deaths in the western United States.
In the Seattle area, deaths from overdose with fentanyl increased by 57% in 2020 compared to the previous year, according to the forensic doctor in the county. Preliminary data show that deaths from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl rose 162 percent in Las Vegas last year. In Los Angeles County, a recent report blamed fentanyl for a 26% increase in overdose deaths among the homeless in the first seven months of 2020.
The problem is particularly acute in San Francisco, where 708 people died from drug overdoses in 2020, an increase of 61% over the previous year. By comparison, 254 people died of Covid-19 in the city last year.