San Francisco declares a state of emergency in the city center
The US metropolis is reporting more and more drug deaths. Now the city government wants to take action. The drug problem has worsened massively across the country with Corona.
Homeless people sleep in the Tenderloin district among clothes and used syringes.
Archive image: Keystone
In view of the no longer controllable drug abuse and the death toll caused by it, San Francisco has declared a state of emergency for a district in the center of the US metropolis. “We lose at least two people a day through an overdose,” said the official Matt Haney on Friday (local time). The Tenderloin district is particularly affected. “This is a public health crisis that needs an urgent and decisive response.”
Tenderloin is very close to popular tourist spots such as Union Square. For some years now, drug abuse has not only exploded there. Synthetic opioids such as fentanyl are mainly responsible. Last year, 711 people died of drug overdoses in San Francisco, more than ever before in a twelve month period. Also this year, according to media reports, the number is likely to be in this order of magnitude.
Massive increase in drug use
The declaration of emergency, signed by Mayor London Breed on Friday, enables local authorities, among other things, to quickly build emergency shelters or open psychological help centers without observing the regulations that are actually in force.
During the corona pandemic, there was apparently a massive increase in drug use in the United States. For the first time, more than 100,000 drug deaths were counted within one year. According to the US health authority CDC, around 100,300 people died as a result of an overdose between April 2020 and April 2021. That was an all-time high and an increase of 28.5 percent compared to the same period last year.
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