SAN FRANCISCO – Mike Enright overdosed three times in December. He is a longtime heroin user and said he didn’t know his limit after switching to fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid.
“It just hits you so much harder,” Mr. Enright said, sitting on the sidewalk not far from the tent where he sleeps.
Long a scourge on the East Coast, fentanyl is now rapidly increasing the number of overdose deaths in the western US.
In the Seattle area, the number of fentanyl overdose deaths in 2020 was up 57% from the previous year, according to data from the county medical examiner. Preliminary data shows that the number of deaths from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl increased by 162% in the Las Vegas region last year. In Los Angeles County, a recent report blamed fentanyl for a 26% increase in overdose deaths among homeless people during the first seven months of 2020.
The problem is particularly acute in San Francisco, where a record 708 people died from drug overdoses in 2020, a 61% increase from the previous year. In comparison, 254 people died of Covid-19 in the city last year.