Unclaimed

~ Jason Schwartz

Of course, all of these people didn’t have addiction. But, for the ones that did, this really pulls at my heart.

So sad — their deaths and the ways they die.

Overdose prevention, rightly, gets a lot of attention.

I wonder how many were offered a pathway to recovery with treatment of adequate intensity, duration, quality, and scope. I wonder how many hated addiction, desperately wanted recovery, and never had access to a realistic pathway.

I wonder how many people were affected by their life, their addiction, and their loss.

I’m grateful to the people that treat their remains with such dignity. I wish every person with addiction were treated with such dignity during their lifetime.

I’m reminded of a saying that I heard attributed to Scandinavian culture — the person must stay, the addiction must go. I wish we embraced that.

Every year, hundreds of people die in San Francisco who go unclaimed, becoming the responsibility of the city and county. Often, they are the most vulnerable people in society—impoverished, addicted, elderly, disappeared from society or a combination thereof. The disposition of their bodies is the unglamorous but critical work of the government.

San Francisco has witnessed a record number of overdose deaths over the last year, many of them from synthetic opioid fentanyl. Last year, over 800 people died from drugs. The trend line shows no signs of abating. Preliminary data shows 131 deaths for January and February.

The number of unclaimed dead has risen in step, doubling in the past 20 years. The medical examiner’s office counted 355 unclaimed dead in 2023—158, or 44%, died from drug overdoses. Half of the 28 scattered from the Bravo in March died from overdoses involving fentanyl. Three died from overdoses involving cocaine.

Mullaney, A. (2024, March 18). San Francisco’s unclaimed dead get a unique funeral. Retrieved March 22, 2024, from The San Francisco Standard website: https://sfstandard.com/2024/03/18/san-francisco-unclaimed-dead-ashes-scattering/
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Published by Jason Schwartz

I have been an addiction professional and social worker since 1994. I started blogging in 2005 as the Clinical Director at Dawn Farm. I no longer work at Dawn Farm and am now the Director of Behavioral Medicine at a community hospital, and a lecturer at Eastern Michigan University’s School of Social Work. Views expressed here are my own. Keep in mind that the field, the contexts in which the field operates, and my views have changed over time.