Despite a state crackdown to seize fentanyl and arrest its traffickers and dealers in San Francisco, May was the city’s deadliest month for fentanyl overdoses on record, according to city and county data.
The California Highway Patrol has seized more than eight pounds of fentanyl in the city’s Tenderloin district and surrounding areas since May, following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement of a task force with state and local authorities targeting traffickers and dealers.
But despite the haul — which the governor’s office said is theoretically enough to kill the population of San Francisco three times over — the number of deaths from accidental overdoses on the synthetic opioid last month was the highest it’s been since the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner began making month-by-month data available in 2020.
