Baghdad by the Bay, as the late columnist Herb Caen called it, has had some colorful events over the years, from earthquakes to the pursuit of gay rights to the "Twinkie defense" winning a manslaughter rather than murder verdict for onetime politician Dan White.
Now, there are two trends, both grim: An increase in overdose deaths, mostly from fentanyl, following on another increase last year; and runaway shoplifting driven by organized crime.
In the first quarter of 2021, overdoses took 252 lives, according to Phillip Coffin, Director of Substance Use Research at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. A year ago, the number was 181. In all of last year, there were 700 deaths from overdose -- more than double the death count for COVID19.
Several illegal drugs account for the deaths, but Coffin notes that fentanyl is the biggest killer. Coffin says it's easy to make, and it's potent. Death by fentanyl can happen in just five minutes, while heroin takes a minimum of half an hour.
As for shoplifting, retail stores are telling their clerks not to stop people who are strolling out the door with goodies they didn't pay for. A 2014 ballot measure classified thefts as misdemeanors if the total is less than $950.
One SF board of supervisors member said he had recently stopped at a local thieves' market. “Half of Walgreens was on the sidewalk. I’m not kidding,” he said. "I’ve never seen anything like it in this city.”
Walgreen's says that San Francisco shoplifting is four times what it is elsewhere, and the company has closed 17 stores so far. The director of the retail crime division at CVS Health called San Francisco “one of the epicenters of organized retail crime.”
Confrontations are increasingly violent. The CVS director says, “We’ve had incidents where our security officers are assaulted on a pretty regular basis in San Francisco.”
Herb Caen might not even recognize his favorite city today.
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