The Facts

Overdose deaths fell sharply this spring. San Francisco recorded 34 deaths in April, 35 in May, and 219 through across the first five months. The 2021-2025 monthly totals were higher in every prior year: 286 deaths in the first five months of 2021, 246 in 2022, 348 in 2023, 329 in 2024, and 316 in 2025. City officials also warned, in reporting by Natalia Gurevich at The Examiner, that cychlorphine, a synthetic opioid tied to a first local death, is showing up in counterfeit pills.

The Context

The city is improving from a still-awful baseline. San Francisco logged 625 overdose deaths in 2025. DPH says Neighborhood Street Teams expanded citywide in May 2025, and the city funded a 16-bed crisis stabilization unit at 822 Geary for people in urgent mental health or substance-use crisis.

The GrowSF Take

This is progress, but San Francisco is still mostly treading water. Even with 219 deaths through May, the city is still losing far too many people. We need a bigger shift: mandatory treatment, zero tolerance for sidewalk-level consumption, and rapid enforcement against street dealers. Better is good, but it is not enough.