San Francisco, CA
San Francisco drug markets persist despite crackdown
More than a year into the crackdown on San Francisco’s illegal drug markets, users in the Tenderloin say they’re still scoring hard drugs on Market Street between Sixth and Seventh, though it’s not quite as easy.
Locals say there have been minimal improvements in the past year at the problem-plagued intersections, which continue to draw crowds. Yet police have hailed the crackdown as a success, pointing to numbers of arrests and kilos of drugs seized.
According to SFPD data, police seized 242.2 kilograms of illegal narcotics, including 110.6 kilograms of fentanyl and 58.6 kilograms of methamphetamine, between May 29, 2023, and Aug. 14, 2024. They arrested 1,224 dealers and 1,526 drug users during that period.
Of the 2,636 people booked into jail as of July 31 as part of the crackdown, only 14 were interested in treatment, a San Francisco Sheriff’s Department spokesperson said.