The Golden Gate to Opioid Abuse: Disparities and Policy Response to the San Francisco Opioid Epidemic

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2024-06-15

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en

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In 2021, a state of emergency was declared in the city of San Francisco. Since then, opioid overdoses have steadily increased every year. This thesis aims to investigate how socioeconomic factors and state/local policies have contributed, and potentially exacerbated, the situation in the city. This will be done by providing a historical overview of drug epidemics in the US, and establishing how the current opioid epidemic emerged. It will then consider how socioeconomic factors, mainly economic inequality and specific neighborhood conditions contributed to the current state of San Francisco. Finally, it will examine different drug policies the state and city have implemented over time, and the effectiveness of these policies. The aim of the thesis is to shed light on the issues that have prevented the state and city from effectively solving the epidemic, and point towards possible ways to address the problem.

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