Officers making a narcotics arrest in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood seized 1.1 pounds of fentanyl and more than six pounds of methamphetamine, police said Saturday.
The seizure came a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom pledged to use the resources of the California National Guard and California Highway Patrol to attack the city's fentanyl trafficking crisis.
The state's assistance is needed "to help break up the open-air drug dealing happening in our city," Mayor London Breed said Friday.
Fentanyl is the leading cause of drug overdose deaths in San Francisco, according to the city Department of Public Health. Of the 620 deaths in 2022, 72 percent were attributed to fentanyl, the department said in January.
A small amount of fentanyl can be fatal and people who use drugs may be unintentionally exposed to it in other drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine, public health officials said.
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