SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — More than 600 lives were lost in San Francisco last year due to an accidental drug overdose. The majority of those people died because drugs were unknowingly laced with fentanyl.

According to the office of the chief medical examiner, in 2020, 725 people died of accidental drug overdose deaths, in 2021, 640 and in 2022, it was 638. Each of those years, over 70% of the people that died had some form of fentanyl in their system.

With overdose death rates on the rise elsewhere in the state, two consecutive years of decline in San Francisco indicates that some of the city’s programs may be helping.

In a recently published annual review of the city’s response to the fentanyl crisis, SF Mayor London Breed pledged to do more, saying fentanyl continues to disrupt and destroy lives in the city.

Watch the video above for more of KRON4’s special coverage on San Francisco’s fentanyl crisis.