Opioid Overdose Epidemic is Rapidly Spreading Across the Bay Area

By Yoohyun Jung
San Francisco Chronicle

In just the past week, three people died at three different stations inside the vast Bay Area Rapid Transit system from causes believed to be drug overdoses. Efforts to resuscitate them, including by administering the opioid reversal drug Narcan, were unsuccessful, reports said.

The deaths occurred in Fremont, Daly City, and Pleasant Hill, cities in three different counties — Alameda, San Mateo, and Contra Costa, respectively — that are all miles from San Francisco’s toughest streets.

Reports like these of drug overdose deaths, especially involving the synthetic opioid fentanyl, are becoming increasingly frequent in other parts of the Bay Area than just San Francisco, where the deadly impact of the opioid epidemic has been most pronounced over the last decade.