San Francisco continues to grapple with a deadly drug overdose epidemic.
The year 2023 surpassed 2020 as the deadliest year on record for overdose deaths in San Francisco. It appears 2024 will be a less deadly year in comparison, but more people have already died from overdoses than in the years before 2020.
This project is updated monthly to reflect the most recent preliminary figures from the medical examiner’s office. The figures here look different from the overdose death toll tabulated using the federal data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which we use for the national overdose tracker. That’s because local agencies have access to more detailed data than the information used by the CDC.
About the data
The Chronicle primarily relies on the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s monthly reports to track the changes in the number of deaths and the share of those that involve fentanyl. Those reports are the most up-to-date and detailed source of information. Read more about the data behind the charts and download them here.
Where the epidemic has hit hardest in San Francisco
Deaths have been largely concentrated in or near the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods of San Francisco. Hover over or tap on the dots to view more details about the people who died in 2020 and 2021.
Overdose deaths in S.F.
SF neighborhoods
Deaths in 2020
In 2021 (preliminary)
In 2020 and 2021, about 23% of the overdose deaths occurred in the Tenderloin district and about 18% in SOMA, with many of the deaths occurring outdoors and on sidewalks in front of buildings. In some cases, multiple deaths occurred at the same address, particularly at Single Room Occupancy (SRO) properties. A Chronicle investigation showed at least 166 people fatally overdosed in city-funded hotels in 2020 and 2021.
Some demographic groups in San Francisco are disproportionately affected by the epidemic, data shows. Most of the people who died of an accidental overdose in the past two years have been men. About 70% of the deaths in 2020 were men between ages 35 and 64.
Fentanyl was involved in 73% percent of accidental overdose deaths in 2020, most often in combination with other drugs. The synthetic opioid, which is manufactured in labs, is “often added to other drugs because of its extreme potency, which makes drugs cheaper, more powerful, more addictive and more dangerous,” according to the CDC.
In response to the escalating overdose epidemic, the city of San Francisco launched the Street Overdose Response Team, a $11.4 million program that takes overdose-related services directly to the streets. Among those services are offering harm reduction supplies and connecting people to long-term substance abuse care.
Data also shows more than half of the people receiving SORT services are unsheltered.
That data shows that first responders performed more than 2,700 reversals citywide in 2022. More than half of those reversals were recorded in the Tenderloin.
Learn more about the overdose epidemic
— San Francisco Center on Substance Use and Health, Treatment Bed Availability, Street Overdose Response Team (SORT), 24-hour support line (415-781-0500)
— National Harm Reduction Coalition’s Drug Overdose Prevention and Education (DOPE) program
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CreditsReporting, data analysis and development by Yoohyun Jung/San Francisco Chronicle. Editing by Dan Kopf/San Francisco Chronicle. Design and development by Paula Friedrich/San Francisco Chronicle. Development by Lesley Huang/Hearst Newspapers DevHub.
Originally published on Aug. 18, 2023
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