The successor to San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is making good on her promise to ramp up the drug war. THERE Brooke Jenkinsappointed in July by Major London Breed after the recall of the reformer Boudinis now threatening people with murder charges if they sell drugs linked to an overdose of death.

California has no drug-induced homicide law on the books, and San Francisco has not previously considered filing murder charges in this context. Jenkins would use the state’s second-degree murder statute, sending convicted sellers to prison for 15 years-to-life.

“Moving to hold drug dealers accountable for murder is in lockstep with other prosecutors throughout the state who are stepping up to protect their communities,” Jenkins said in a September 29 statements. “We have to send a strong message in the community and in the courtroom that we will not stand by and allow dealers to kill innocent people.” Her office did not respond to Filter’s request for comment.

Her office has already filed for pretrial detention in seven cases.

Jenkins’ statement ran through a list of drug-war propaganda talking points, like claiming certain amounts of fentanyl are known to be lethal, and that harsher criminalization will make people safer. Her office is also seeking pretrial detention “in cases where defendants pose clear threats to public safety given the lethality of the vast quantities of fentanyl they are accused of possessing, [and] the repeated possession for sale of suspected narcotics.”

Prosecutors using a traditional homicide charge like second-degree murder, particularly when there is not a specific drug-induced homicide law in their state of jurisdiction, is nothing new. But since taking office, Jenkins has been supported by Mothers Against Drug Deaths (MADD), a group that advocates for mandatory treatment and believes that “harm reduction has done some good things but it has gone too far.” MADD did not respond to Filter’s request for comment.

MADD’s ideology lines up with that of recently defeated California gubernatorial candidate Michael Shellenberger, who ran as an independent on a platform of mass civil commitment for people who use drugs. MADD is a part of the California Peace Coalition that Shellenberger created to advertise his planned asylum-industrial complex, “Cal-Psych,” from the campaign trail.

Shellenberger received 3 percent of the vote for governor in the primary. But DA Jenkins’ anti-harm reduction stances represent something more serious because she is in power. Her office has already filed for pretrial detention in seven cases.

Trying to curb overdose deaths by prosecuting “dealers,” people who are often friends of the person who died, is like trying to fix a plumbing issue by poking holes in the pipe. Jenkins has claimed that pursuing such convictions is in line with her desire to “enforce the law equally.” For context, killing someone with your car in California is a misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum of one year in county jail.

Photograph via City of San Francisco

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The successor to San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is making good on her promise to ramp up the drug war. THERE Brooke Jenkinsappointed in July by Major London Breed after the recall of the reformer Boudinis now threatening people with murder charges if they sell drugs linked to an overdose of death.

California has no drug-induced homicide law on the books, and San Francisco has not previously considered filing murder charges in this context. Jenkins would use the state’s second-degree murder statute, sending convicted sellers to prison for 15 years-to-life.

“Moving to hold drug dealers accountable for murder is in lockstep with other prosecutors throughout the state who are stepping up to protect their communities,” Jenkins said in a September 29 statements. “We have to send a strong message in the community and in the courtroom that we will not stand by and allow dealers to kill innocent people.” Her office did not respond to Filter’s request for comment.

Her office has already filed for pretrial detention in seven cases.

Jenkins’ statement ran through a list of drug-war propaganda talking points, like claiming certain amounts of fentanyl are known to be lethal, and that harsher criminalization will make people safer. Her office is also seeking pretrial detention “in cases where defendants pose clear threats to public safety given the lethality of the vast quantities of fentanyl they are accused of possessing, [and] the repeated possession for sale of suspected narcotics.”

Prosecutors using a traditional homicide charge like second-degree murder, particularly when there is not a specific drug-induced homicide law in their state of jurisdiction, is nothing new. But since taking office, Jenkins has been supported by Mothers Against Drug Deaths (MADD), a group that advocates for mandatory treatment and believes that “harm reduction has done some good things but it has gone too far.” MADD did not respond to Filter’s request for comment.

MADD’s ideology lines up with that of recently defeated California gubernatorial candidate Michael Shellenberger, who ran as an independent on a platform of mass civil commitment for people who use drugs. MADD is a part of the California Peace Coalition that Shellenberger created to advertise his planned asylum-industrial complex, “Cal-Psych,” from the campaign trail.

Shellenberger received 3 percent of the vote for governor in the primary. But DA Jenkins’ anti-harm reduction stances represent something more serious because she is in power. Her office has already filed for pretrial detention in seven cases.

Trying to curb overdose deaths by prosecuting “dealers,” people who are often friends of the person who died, is like trying to fix a plumbing issue by poking holes in the pipe. Jenkins has claimed that pursuing such convictions is in line with her desire to “enforce the law equally.” For context, killing someone with your car in California is a misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum of one year in county jail.

Photograph via City of San Francisco

The post San Francisco’s New DA Strikes to Prosecute Overdose Deaths as Homicide appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Hotel staff like Laverne Taylor can relate to the guests. She says she was addicted to drugs as a teenager, and lived on the street. She remembers getting high just to stay warm.

Taylor was in and out of prison before receiving a life sentence for murder. After serving 26 years behind bars, she was released in 2019 when then-Gov. Jerry Brown commuted her sentence. Soon after that she was working at Hotel Whitcomb.

Taylor says her heart broke watching guests struggle to adjust to living inside after years on the streets.

“You had people you took off the street, literally, and you put them all in a [three]-star hotel,” Taylor said. “You’d see the room and it was like it was demolished, tents in there. We couldn’t understand. ‘Why do you have a tent in there?'”

She said some people needed help even for mundane tasks like turning on showers, or using television remote controls.

Taylor has used CPR on guests more than a dozen times, and has attempted to revive people after overdoses—usually successfully, but sometimes not.

She was working at Hotel Whitcomb the day Sterling Ulrich died. She’d grown close to Ulrich, who was just beginning to open up around staff.

When Taylor heard the emergency call on the hotel radio along with Ulrich’s name, her heart started racing. When she found Ulrich, she began CPR, tag teaming the mouth breathing and chest compressions with another colleague, until it became clear that they couldn’t save Ulrich.

“It’s like a scene from a bad movie where people are trying, and trying, and trying until someone pulls them off,” Taylor said.

Staff need ongoing counseling for trauma

Soon after Hotel Whitcomb opened to vulnerable residents, an organization called the Harm Reduction Therapy Center began providing counseling for staff who were seeing overdoses.

Harm Reduction Therapy Center’s leadership team at a holiday gathering. Left to right: Nathan Kamps-Hughes, program coordinator and staff therapist; Abigail McMorrow, staff therapist; Maurice Byrd, director of training and business operations; Maxx Malloy, staff therapist; Irina Alexander, staff therapist; Jason Brown, program coordinator and staff therapist; and Anna Berg, director of programs. (Courtesy Anna Berg)

Anna Berg is a clinical social worker for the center. She says Hotel Whitcomb became a microcosm of the city’s multiple social crises. The same mental health and substance use issues playing out every day on the streets were now happening under one roof, and seeing that took a toll on staff. She said staff there need long-term support rather than only after overdoses and other emergencies.

She said staff trauma has been a major unintended consequence of these hotels.

“Seeing somebody go through a trauma is still a trauma — these repeated exposures that staff are having to incredibly traumatic events where it’s life or death and you feel responsible for that, even if you’re not,” she said.

Brandi Marshall took a job with Five Keys in November specifically to address the need for staff support. She says it’s hard to work at Hotel Whitcomb, where guests continue to use lethal drugs after overdosing.

Marshall served in the military, and volunteered to go back to Iraq soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. She said because of the trauma she experienced seeing people die while in the military, she knows how to block out some of the emotional aspects of her job at the hotel.

“I have mastered that art from Iraq,” she said. “[My co-workers] really absorb a lot, coming out of prison. They absorb all of what is happening around them.”

Monique LeSarre, executive director at Rafiki Coalition for Health and Wellness, a nonprofit aimed at reducing health inequities in underserved communities, said her therapists have counseled Hotel Whitcomb staff in crisis.

“[Staff are] reviving people, [people] who then turn around and die the next day,” said LeSarre. “Their own mental health is suffering. It’s really unethical, really, really, really unethical, to not provide the appropriate level of support.”

Dawn Koch, a guest at Hotel Whitcomb, talks to a Five Keys staff member (not pictured) at the Hotel Whitcomb in San Francisco on Feb. 18, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

LeSarre said she sought funding for mental health support from the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. But, she said, the agency turned down the grant proposal.

When asked about this, Denny Machuca-Grebe, a spokesperson with the agency, responded in a written statement.

“As agencies that day in and day out provide support and services for individuals with many challenges around mental health, substance use and housing, we are very attuned to how difficult it could be to serve vulnerable communities while caring for ourselves as individuals,” he wrote.

Machuca-Grebe did not respond to KQED’s question about any efforts that might be underway to support the mental health of staff at shelter-in-place hotels.

He said to connect with Five Keys for steps the nonprofit has taken to support their staff.

Marshall says she and other employees are beginning to open up more about some of the trauma they’re facing. Five Keys has started support groups for employees, including a group for women. At first only one or two people would attend these sessions. Now, dozens of people show up, Marshall said, talking about everything from their own children who have passed away to reversing overdoses.

Steps toward stability

Dawn Koch has lived at Hotel Whitcomb since last August, and she wants to start a group for residents living at the hotel to support each other. She carries Narcan with her everywhere, and says building a sense of community is an important part of harm reduction, too.

“There’s too many people that are so lost they don’t even know themselves anymore. Unless you have somebody to help you from that point, you feel like you’re always lost,” she said.

“I’ve really seen too many people here one minute and then gone the next,” she said.

Teddy Melendez, another resident at the hotel, uses fentanyl at the curb so people are nearby to save him if he overdoses. People regularly gather in crowds outside the hotel and use drugs.

Melendez said he’s been using less fentanyl because he’s taking medication to reduce cravings and ease withdrawal pain.

“I want to have my own spot, have my own apartment. For me to do that, I have to stop using,” he said.

San Francisco officials plan to end the city’s emergency hotel program in September. So far, a little more than half of guests who are considered eligible for housing through the program have found it, and it’s mostly permanent housing. Eligibility is based on a number of factors, such as a person’s health or how long they’ve been unhoused.

Eldridge Cruse, the hotel supervisor, tells staff to focus on the overdoses they’ve reversed rather than the people they couldn’t save.

“You’ve got to have an X-ray vision or cameras in every room, and monitor every room to catch what’s going on. But you can’t,” Cruse said. “We were dealt the hand, and we played it the best we could. No loss of life is acceptable. But we couldn’t stop what was going to happen. We couldn’t.”

This article was produced as a project for the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2021 Data Fellowship.

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The 14-year-old girl was facedown on the top bunk bed, arms splayed out. It was just after 5 pm Maybe my daughter is just really tired, Hazel Mayorga thought. Paris is not usually a late napper. I’ll just give her a shake.

Climbing up the bed frame to get a better look, Mayorga saw that the teenage girl who’d visited Paris the night before was also on the top bunk bed, asleep. She jostled them both. The other girl woke up.

Paris did not. Her lips were purple.

After the screaming and the 911 call and the frenetic paramedics’ best efforts were over, there was nothing more to be done. On March 9, 2021, Paris Serrano became the youngest person in San Francisco to the last year of a fentanyl overdose.

While more than 1,300 people died from drug overdoses in San Francisco over the last two years, many from the powerful opioid fentanyl, few of them were teenagers. In 2021, 645 people died of fatal overdoses, and at least 3, including Paris, were under the age of 21, according to the most recent data, which provides demographic details for only 469 of those overdoses. In 2020, at least four of the 711 fatalities were teens.

The rate of teenagers overdosing nationally is also very small — but it’s growing. The nonprofit Families Against Fentanyl estimates that fentanyl overdose deaths among American teenagers tripled in the past two years.

Paris Serrano, who died of a drug overdose last year, is seen in photos on her mom’s kitchen wall at home in San Francisco.

Provided by Hazel Mayorga

Paris is a vivid face of that trend. Her death highlights how the devastation of drug overdoses is spreading along with the prevalence of hyper-deadly fentanyl. And how families sometimes never find out how their child got ahold of the drug — or unknowingly took it.

In the year since that awful day, Mayorga, 39, has wrestled with feelings of helplessness and guilt. She said her daughter would not have knowingly taken fentanyl, and that the drug was not present in her home.

However, because of the circumstances around the overdose, her other child, a 12-year-old girl, was placed in a temporary foster home, and Mayorga has been undergoing counseling.

The mere mention of Paris, a bubbly kid who liked to sing, whose favorite song was “Invéntame” (Imagine Me) by Marco Antonio Solis, and who liked to cook potato pancakes for her mother, chokes up Mayorga. Last month, on the first anniversary of Paris’ death, she spent the morning sitting in the living room of her tenderloin flat with friends, staring at pictures of her daughter. And crying.

“Today is the worst day, just the worst day,” she said.

Hazel Mayorga gets emotional as she talks on the first anniversary of the day her daughter Paris Serrano died of a drug overdose.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

Graciela Cortez, a close friend for many years, put an arm around Mayorga.

“Oh my God, that girl was special,” Cortez, 54, told her. “She was a good, clean-hearted girl, and so much magnetism. She was one of those girls who wanted to eat the world in one day. Remember her like that.”

At the time of her death, Paris was a freshman at June Jordan School for Equity, a small public high school named after the renowned American poet and activist. Though just a teenager, Paris dreamed of becoming a police officer or a lawyer, her mother said.

Mayorga came to San Francisco after fleeing violence in Nicaragua 16 years ago to find a better life in America. She had her two daughters with a man she met on the journey, she said, and started to build a solid life, taking house-cleaning jobs while she lived in subsidized housing on Treasure Island.

But the children’s father was violent and abusive, she and her friends said, and he did short stints in jail for it but always came back home. An eviction followed because of the disruptions, punctuated by periods of homelessness and, for Mayorga, stints in a domestic violence shelter.

The girls, she said, were sent to temporary foster homes before. But she said she found some stability about four years ago as a single mom in the supportive housing apartment where she now lives. Then came Paris’ death.

During one of the worst times for Mayorga and the girls, she pitched a tent in the Mission. Former city Supervisor David Campos found the family living there years ago while making rounds with street outreach counselors, and helped route them toward the housing she eventually landed in.

“I remember this mother being very protective of her kids and doing her best to take care of them,” Campos said recently after hearing from Cortez of Paris’ death. “She was in a tough spot and really trying to get back on her feet — she was even working. It’s very tragic.

“To me, it seems like there was a system failure here,” he said.

For Mayorga, that years-old dream of a good life in America feels in tatters.

“God is with us, but why such sadness?” she said. “Nothing in life is more important than your daughter. Why would he take her?”

Paris Serrano, who died of a drug overdose last year, is seen in photos on her mother’s kitchen wall in San Francisco. Her mother suspects Paris may have smoked a fentanyl-laced joint.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Luis Tolbar, Mayorga’s 42-year-old boyfriend, was with her when she found Paris. They wonder if the 17-year-old girl Paris was hanging out with had something to do with how fentanyl wound up in the apartment, and then in her system.

The two were smoking marijuana, Mayorga said, “but my daughter never did hard drugs, never, and I don’t do them either.”

Mayorga believes her daughter smoked a joint that she didn’t know was laced with fentanyl, which is about 50 times more potent than heroin.

Lawyers, police and child welfare officials contacted by The Chronicle said they could not comment on the circumstances of the case because it involved a juvenile. The Chronicle could not locate Paris’ friend.

Mayorga said she called a child welfare social worker from the city Human Services Agency to remove the second girl when she showed up the night before, because Mayorga wasn’t able to make her leave and thought she would be a bad influence.

She said the worker, who like others at the agency told The Chronicle he could not comment because it was a juvenile matter, told her he had no authority to remove the girl.

Sources familiar with the situation — who also declined to be identified because they were not authorized to comment, and were granted anonymity by The Chronicle — said the social worker acted correctly.

A police report showed that heroin and fentanyl were found in a jacket in the room where the girls were, but with inconclusive evidence about its origins, officers did not file charges against anyone.

Paris’ death is a reminder that the fentanyl epidemic ravaging the city is not merely a street-life problem.

“Most of the coverage around fentanyl overdoses in San Francisco has been focused on homeless single adults in the Tenderloin,” said Trent Rhorer, director of the Human Services Agency, which overees child protective services but could not comment on Paris’ death. “But the reality is fentanyl is touching more than that — it touches families, too.”

dr Allanceson Smith, an adolescent addiction specialist with the city Department of Public Health, said it was “pretty rare for a minor to be using opioids,” but added that such use is growing.

The National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics reports that drug overdose death rates among children 15 or younger are about 0.3 per 100,000, compared with about 22 per 100,000 overall.

“When you look at the US as a whole, the vast majority of kids tend to see opioids as dangerous,” Smith said. “Over 60% of high school students disapprove of opioid use. And it’s not uncommon for kids to be unintentionally exposed — taking it without knowing they’re taking it.”

Paris’s writing at home on Wednesday, March 9, 2022 in San Francisco, California.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

Hazel Mayorga’s guinea pig named Paris is seen on the one-year anniversary of the day her daughter Paris Serrano died of a drug overdose on Wednesday, March 9, 2022 in San Francisco, California. The pet was named after her daughter.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

A sample of Paris’ writing and drawing and the guinea pig that Hazel Mayorga named after her deceased daughter. Photo by Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle
A sample of Paris’ writing and drawing and the guinea pig that Hazel Mayorga named after her deceased daughter. Photo by Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

Slumped in a chair on the anniversary of Paris’ death, Mayorga said she had no idea how common it was for children to overdose. There was only one loss she was focused on — her daughter.

She hummed a little from Paris’ favorite song, remembering how the two of them used to sing it together in her tiny kitchen. “Imagine me, Imagine what one day we could have been,” the lyric goes. Mayorga hung her head and burst into sobs.

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron

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For bartenders and bouncers in San Francisco nightlife, keeping people safe often means more than just a quick check of ID and vaccination card. It can also mean saving someone from a fatal overdose.

“I was a bartender the other day and our bouncer came over and said he’d saved someone’s life,” said James Shane, who works at Emperor Norton’s BoozeLand in Tenderloin, pointing to a box of naloxone, a drug that prevents opioid overdoses turning back.

Shane was one of eight other bartenders and restaurant owners who recently attended a free naloxone administration training course, also known as narcan, while on the Mission. The 30-minute workshop was led by the Drug Overdose Prevention and Education (DOPE) Project, a program run by the Harm Reduction Coalition that distributes naloxone across the city and is funded by the Department of Public Health (SFDPH).

San Francisco has funded efforts to bring naloxone into the hands of drug users since 2003. However, as the number of overdose deaths has continued to rise since the pandemic, the city has also noted an increased need for life-saving drugs, according to Eileen Loughran, a health program coordinator for the SFDPH.

However, with overdose deaths still at historic highs, city guides are now pushing bold and controversial plans to crack down on drug trafficking and use outdoors. They hope to address parts of the opioid crisis that Narcan cannot alone, including behavioral therapy, housing, community, and more.

Kristen Marshall of Drug Overdose Prevention Education leads a class on how to use Narcan for bartenders and restaurant owners at Mission Bowling Club. (Craig Lee / The Examiner)

More than 6,000 overdoses were reversed in San Francisco in 2021 with naloxone alone, compared to 4,300 the previous year, according to data from the DOPE project and SFDPH. Both years mark a huge leap from 2019, when 2,605 reversals of overdose were reported.

At the same time, overdose deaths reached 545 between January and October, which is close to the 711 total overdose deaths reported in 2020, according to the chief coroner.

“Everything is increasing and it was all very predictable,” says Kristen Marshall, who oversees the DOPE project in San Francisco. “Stronger drugs only increase the existing risk. Add to this COVID and the isolation and chaos of a global pandemic, and it hits the same community that is experiencing these problems the hardest. “

In addition to bars and restaurants that choose to wear it, naloxone is also offered at places like the Community Behavioral Health Services Pharmacy at 1380 Howard St. It is also often worn by first responders in San Francisco, including some law enforcement officers.

Ali Heller (right) of FentCheck speaks to Wine Director Christopher Potter (left) and bartender Alex Duke at Patio Wine Bar in the Marina District about wearing Narcan in their bar. (Craig Lee / The Examiner)

Many places are plagued by the same challenges that San Francisco faces, contributing to addictions and overdose deaths, including unstable housing, food insecurity, and massive economic inequality. But few cities invest in overdose prevention and reversal as much as San Francisco, which operates the largest single-city naloxone distribution program in the country.

San Francisco harm reduction strategies go beyond overdose reversal kits and range from clean syringe access and disposal points to community behavioral health services pharmacy to the city’s newly formed Street Overdose Response Team.

Studies have shown that providing Narcan does not increase drug use or make drug use more risky, and it is not possible to overdose or overdose the drug on your own.

Rather, overdose reversals are often painful and traumatic for those affected. Individuals can wake up confused, disoriented, and angry. Withdrawal can also make you feel sick.

“Coming back from the brink of death isn’t a fun thing. The added stigma of an overdose compounded the negative impact of the experience, ”said Juliana DePietro, assistant program director for Glide, a nonprofit that offers a range of homeless services including harm control, mobile vaccination, medical care, food and social activities.

Still, from a public health perspective, flooding communities with the drug is a critical step simply to save lives. Given the right time and circumstances, it can be a step towards treatment. “A person can only change his life if he lives,” said Loughran.

Reversal to recovery

What happens to those who survive an overdose is now a real-time experiment by city guides who recently announced a plan to tackle drug trafficking and possibly also drug use.

“We are a city that is proud of its second chance,” said Mayor of London Breed at a recent press conference. But “our compassion should not be confused with weakness or indifference”.

On Friday, Breed declared a 90-day state of emergency in the Tenderloin and compared the crisis level with that of the COVID-19 pandemic. The move dispenses with contracting and planning rules so the city can launch a website that aims to connect people to behavioral health services and housing programs.

The announcement follows a plan released last week that will increase the police presence in the tenderloin, requiring users on the street to seek assistance or face jail terms.

“The situation at the tenderloin is an emergency and requires an emergency response,” said Breed. “We will use this focus and coordination to stop the illegal activities in the neighborhood, to give people the treatment and support they need, and to make the Tenderloin a safer and more livable place for families and children who call the neighborhood their home. “

The mayor’s more recent rhetoric contrasts with Breed’s stance in 2020. Last year, she redirected law enforcement funds to support the African American community and launched programs like the Street Crisis Response Team, which began in November 2020 as an alternative to police to respond to mental health and drug use crises on the streets.

It remains to be seen how the different approaches work together. Proponents of harm reduction warn that many struggling with addiction and homelessness have had negative and sometimes violent experiences with social services and hospitals.

But even those who disagree on solutions can often find common ground in the growing need to connect those struggling with addiction to treatment. DePietro says The City’s safe place of consumption can be critical at this point in providing a safe place for drug use as well as immediate connections to medical, social, and rehabilitation services. The idea is to create a controlled space where people can use drugs under the supervision of healthcare professionals, which can reverse overdoses, and connect people to other services that may need them.

“This (safe consumption site) could tackle so many stigma, criminalization and safety issues and just make sure people aren’t punished for their use so that they don’t have to consume in isolation, which is incredibly dangerous. Said DePietro.

Overdose deaths have tragically impacted communities across the city, but the majority in San Francisco are still extremely low-income and unhoused drug users. Poverty initiatives according to Marshall and DePietro.

“The work that is being done to address the overdose crisis is important on so many levels,” DePietro said. “A big part of this is reducing isolation and stigma around drug use, building a community with people who use drugs and providing a safe place to talk to vendors and case managers about anything they are concerned about, and Behavior changes.

Nevertheless, neither the mayor’s lightning bolt in the Tenderloin nor the safe place of consumption will be a panacea for the city’s longstanding tensions over police drug use and homelessness.

“Changes in behavior have to be driven by where a person is,” DePietro said. “This not only relates to the number of treatment beds available, but also to how they have experienced the treatment in the past.”

City of “second chance”

Meanwhile, more and more bars and venues are stocking their emergency kits and bathrooms with naloxone, especially before holidays like New Years Eve.

Mission Bowling Club owner Molly Bradshaw hosted the recent Narcan training workshop in her shop on Monday after someone recently walked in looking for Narcan during an overdose crisis. But the venue was running out of supplies it had before the pandemic.

“I want people to feel comfortable and safe here, or just feel good about asking for help when they need it. We have a wonderful community here and we want to be there for our uninhabited neighbors too, ”said Bradshaw, who has an academic background in public health. “We can’t do everything, but I wanted to know more about it and I feel empowered by it.”

Other efforts, such as a program called FentCheck, have sprung up to offer bars and venues free naloxone and fentanyl test strips that can be used to determine if the opioid is present in a drug supply. Oakland residents Alison Heller and Dean Shold founded the nonprofit after losing friends and loved ones to a drug overdose and are now distributing supplies to dozens of facilities in Oakland, San Francisco and New York City.

“Every day I go to venues and knock on doors and give them a chance to have Narcan,” Heller said recently while walking around the marina, where she asked bar workers if they wanted free supplies. “Bartenders tell me there’s no rule, rhyme or reason for who’s going to get this. Some venues that you might not suspect have that kind of engagement. “

sjohnson@sfexaminer.com

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The city suffered over 700 overdose-related deaths last year, which led to the new initiative launched this week. Meanwhile, Allegheny County’s district attorney is copying the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s attorney’s efforts to sue the recent opioid deal, claiming it was an unsuitable deal.

San Francisco Chronicle: SF’s New Response to Drug Crisis: Teams Provide Overdose Care

As San Francisco grapples with a skyrocketing drug epidemic that killed more than 700 people last year, a new city response team took to the streets on Monday to help people who survive an overdose. The hope is to prevent a future, potentially fatal, overdose by directing people to resources and treatments. The influx of fentanyl, a potent opioid, has exacerbated the city’s drug crisis in recent years, with fatal overdoses rising from 441 in 2019 to 259 in 2018. (Shaikh Rashad, 8/2)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Allegheny County DA follows Philadelphia DA Krasner’s lead in suing over opioid agreement

Allegheny District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. is following the example of Philadelphia Attorney Larry Krasner in suing the Pennsylvania Attorney General over a proposed opioid deal. The two prosecutors are among dozens of local government agencies in Pennsylvania who have filed lawsuits against drug companies and distributors in state courts accusing them of fueling the opioid crisis – allegations the companies have denied. (Whelan and Dunn, 8/2)

The Baltimore Sun: University of Maryland Medical System Gives $ 1.2 Million to Fight Hunger in the State

The University of Maryland Medical System announced Monday that it has allocated $ 1.2 million to help tackle food insecurity in the state. The money will go to organizations already working in Maryland to reduce hunger and meet longer-term needs. Efforts in the 13 regions where the medical system operates are part of a larger effort to reduce the so-called social determinants of health that indirectly affect people’s overall wellbeing. (Cohn, 8/2)

San Antonio Express-News: Texas’ handling of $ 25 million in pandemic care fund raises questions

Two attorneys representing current and ex-Texas foster children are frustrated with the state’s slow progress in disbursing federal funds and expressed disappointment with what they see as arbitrary and arbitrary rules about who can access this assistance. “It just seems to be very dispersed about who has access to that money – some people have gotten a lot of support and others are getting no support,” said Mary Christine Reed, Austin attorney, director of Texas RioGrande Legal of Texas Foster Youth Justice Project Aid. “It’s just a kind of gamble of where you are and who you interact with and how they interpret it.” Almost $ 400 million was given to states and tribes across the country this year to help current and former foster children during the pandemic. (O’Hare, 8/2)

WUSF 89.7: States struggle with nursing home polls, HHS analysis shows

Forty percent of Florida nursing homes had not had a standard quality-of-care survey for at least 16 months, according to an analysis released by the U.S. Department of Health on Friday. The analysis showed that 284 of the 704 licensed facilities in Florida had gone out without surveys. According to the analysis, 71 percent of nursing homes across the country were older than 16 months. (8/2)

PBS NewsHour: California May Spend Billions On Permanent Shelters As Sultry Warming Blankets The State

With millions of Americans in the Pacific Northwest and Southeast facing heat warnings and rising temperatures killing hundreds of people, extreme weather conditions and their serious, sometimes fatal effects raise questions about whether infrastructure could help. Rising temperatures across the country are helping Congress attempt to pass a historic infrastructure deal that would respond to, among other things, the growing threat of climate change – leading to a new focus on so-called “resilience hubs” that coordinate aim to provide services to communities in need of help during weather disasters. The deal is targeting billions of dollars to make “infrastructure more resilient to the effects of climate change” at the federal level. In California, this advance is the focus. (Rodriguez-Delgado, 8/2)

Anchorage Daily News: Confirmation voting from the Anchorage Department of Health Director’s vote accelerated as the gathering raises questions about pandemic-related comments

Some members of the congregation said they were concerned about a comment Morgan made in an interview with Alaska’s News Source last week about avoiding a question about whether the pandemic was ongoing. “I really can’t answer that,” he said. “I think it’s a, it’s a definition – it’s a personal point of view. I wouldn’t, we’re not in a state of emergency and that’s what I’m going for. Pandemic is an adjective that describes a situation. ”He later told Alaska’s News Source that he talked about the concept of an emergency statement and that a person who is not vaccinated is in a pandemic. (Goodykoontz, 8/2)

This is part of the KHN Morning Briefing, a round-up of health coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.

The post San Francisco Steps Up Overdose Care With Response Groups appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

San Francisco’s early and dramatic response to the coronavirus last year earned it praise as a model for fighting the pandemic. But did the city also see a spike in fatal overdoses during this period that far outpaced COVID-19 deaths?

Rocklin Republican MP Kevin Kiley said so on social media this week.

“San Francisco had twice as many overdose deaths as COVID in the past year. This true state of emergency meets with political indifference, if not encouragement, ”Kiley wrote on Twitter on April 26th.

Kiley has filed numerous legal suits against Governor Gavin Newsom over the past year, alleging the Democrat and former San Francisco mayor exceeded his authority during the pandemic.

We decided to review the first part of his claim, which was posted on Twitter and shared more than 2,000 times in two days.

Did Kiley get his numbers right? Data from the city health department and medical examiner’s office support his case.

How many people died of COVID-19 in San Francisco in 2020?

San Francisco was the first city in the country to declare a coronavirus emergency in February 2020, weeks before other major metropolitan areas. The response contributed to San Francisco having one of the lowest COVID-19 death rates among major cities early last fall.

At the end of September, there were an average of 12 coronavirus deaths per 100,000 people in San Francisco. The next lower city, Seattle, had nearly three times as many deaths on average, according to Healthline.com, a health news and information website.

By the end of last year, San Francisco, home to nearly 875,000 people, had recorded 257 deaths from the virus, according to the city’s health department. That number soared this winter as the virus rose in California and many parts of the country. According to the latest data, since the pandemic began, it’s 531.

But given that relative success, has overdose deaths dwarfed the COVID-19 death toll in San Francisco, as Kiley claimed?

A look at San Francisco’s 2020 overdose deaths

We asked Joshua Hoover, Kiley’s chief of staff, to provide evidence to support the lawmaker’s testimony. He pointed to a recent New York Times article that estimated San Francisco’s overdose deaths at 713 last year, more than double the 257 COVID-19 deaths.

While the article doesn’t point to a specific source, we found a report from the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner that more than confirms Kiley’s claim.

The report listed 697 accidental overdose deaths from January to December 2020. The dates are described as preliminary.

This is a screenshot from a February 2021 report of accidental overdose deaths by the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office.

Still, that number is more than two and a half times the number of COVID-19 deaths in San Francisco last year. According to the Times article, it’s three times the city’s total as of 2017.

What caused San Francisco’s surge in overdose deaths?

San Francisco health officials said two key factors have caused the surge in overdose deaths: the spread of the powerful opioid fentanyl in the city and the isolation and despair caused by the pandemic.

“These deaths were on the rise before the Covid pandemic. But a lot about the pandemic has really affected our ability to fight it, ”said Margot Kushel, professor of medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. “There is no question that we are losing far too many people to this preventable cause of death.”

Kristen Marshall is a project manager for the Drug Overdose Prevention and Education Project, a city-funded program that coordinates San Francisco’s response to overdose. She told the San Francisco Chronicle that the stay-at-home order caused people to use drugs alone, which can be more deadly than having someone use them under supervision.

“People at high risk were isolated, which increased the risk. The chaos put people at greater risk, ”she said. “The worst months were in the middle of summer when it was the most chaotic for this community.”

Kushel said communities can reduce overdose deaths by creating “safe injection sites” or places where people can inject drugs under the supervision of trained medical staff. These websites are legal in Canada, Europe, and Australia, but illegal in the US.

Lawyers say they offer professional oversight and the ability to connect people to treatment services. The California Senate passed SB 57 this month to launch a pilot program that will enable safe injection sites in San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles Counties. To become law, it would have to be approved by the State Assembly and Governor Gavin Newsom.

Kushel said communities can also reduce harm by offering drug tests to identify deadly opioids like fentanyl, which are often mixed into other drugs without a person’s knowledge.

Hoover, Kiley’s chief of staff, didn’t respond when asked what solutions lawmakers had for San Francisco or any other place grappling with the drug overdose crisis.

Our decision

Rep. Kevin Kiley claimed San Francisco had twice as many overdose deaths as COVID-19 in the past year.

Data from the city health department and medical examiner’s office support lawmakers’ claim. It should be noted that San Francisco had one of the lowest COVID-19 death rates per capita of any major city.

Even so, city overdose deaths rose rapidly during the pandemic compared to previous years, reaching nearly 700, while the total number of coronavirus deaths was 257.

We took Kiley’s claim to be true.

TRUE – The statement is correct and nothing essential is missing.

Bibliography

Asm. Kevin Kiley, Tweet, April 26, 2021.

Joshua Hoover, Asm’s chief of staff. Kiley, email exchange, April 26, 2021.

Margot Kushel, video interview, professor of medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, April 26, 2021.

The San Francisco Department of Health, COVID-19 Cases and Deaths, accessed April 2021

San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office, Accidental Overdose Death Report, February 17, 2021

The New York Times, San Francisco, is grappling with another type of epidemic: drug deaths, April 23, 2021.

Sfist, SF tripled the number of overdose deaths from COVID-19 in 2020, Jan. 15, 2021

Associated Press, California Senate OKs, monitored injection sites for drug users on April 23, 2021

Scott Wiener, San Francisco Chronicle, tries again to allow SF, Oakland, and LA to open a safe drug use website on December 7, 2020.

Fodors.com, How San Francisco Sustained a Low COVID-19 Rate, Feb. 1, 2021

The post FACT CHECK: Did San Francisco Have ‘Twice As Many Drug Overdose Deaths As COVID Deaths’ In 2020? appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.