San Francisco is following other California counties in charging drug dealers connected with fentanyl deaths with murder in the latest attempt to curb the fentanyl epidemic in the state.
In tandem with San Francisco Mayor London Breed and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) office announced in October that a task force had been formed to link law enforcement to investigate opioid deaths. The San Francisco police chief, California Highway Patrol, and California National Guard are involved with this initiative.
“Fentanyl is deadlier than any drug we’ve ever seen on our streets,” Breed said. “We must treat the trafficking and sale of fentanyl more severely, and people must be put on notice that pushing this drug could lead to homicide charges.”
District attorneys in other large California counties, including San Diego, Sacramento, and Fresno, have enacted similar policies. The goal is that, by prosecuting fentanyl dealers with homicide rather than drug charges, the more severe penalties will lessen deaths from the opioid crisis.
San Francisco, known for its Democratic practices on prosecuting criminals, plans to follow suit. Pressure to address the crisis has been mounting in the city from residents and businesses.
Every overdose won’t be prosecuted as a murder under the new plan, according to Jenkins. Investigators will instead take a “very targeted approach,” and prosecutors will work closely with medical examiners and law enforcement to collect evidence of any ties to a specific drug sale.
However, counties already using the new plan have found it tricky to prosecute. In Riverside County, 34 cases have been filed against alleged dealers, compared to the 572 opioid deaths the county recorded in 2022. Prosecutors said the investigations are time-consuming, as they include having to sift through cellphone calls, text messages, and posts on social media to prove a dealer was aware of the risks involved with dealing fentanyl.
Critics of the plan include Stanford University professor Keith Humphreys, who studies the psychiatry of addiction. He said drug dealing is “low-skilled labor” and that drug dealers arrested off of the street will simply be replaced. Other critics said the city needs to deal with the cause of drug addiction to see tangible change.
“A purely punitive approach, it just doesn’t work. If it would have worked, it would have worked over the past 100 years,” said Hillary Ronen, a San Francisco supervisor whose district includes the Mission, an area struggling with drug use. Ronen argues for safe drug consumption sites known as wellness hubs, a measure the governor opposes.
However, Breed is confident that despite critics’ concerns, the new approach will see change on the streets. She said city leaders have to be “willing to make the hard decisions to make change.”
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“Selling poison should not be protected,” Breed said. “I am frustrated with the criticism for taking too hard of a stance and saying that people have no other way or no other option. I don’t agree with that.”
The new task force is set to launch this spring.
