Nestor Garcia hadn’t slept in days when he started dozing off on the frame of his bicycle in U.N. Plaza this summer. His feet slipped from the pedals as he slumped over the handlebars, barely holding himself upright as he fell into a fentanyl stupor. 

He was in bad shape, he admits. But he contends he was very much alive when a stranger inserted a plastic Narcan nozzle into his nose. The powerful overdose-reversal drug jolted through him, sending his body into a hysteria of fentanyl withdrawal. The stranger then told him not to sleep in the plaza.

“He knew I was still awake; he had bad intentions for sure,” Garcia said. “The pain was so bad through my whole body. I started flailing around and puking. It felt like a bad dream.” 

As drug overdoses have taken more than 3,500 lives in San Francisco over the past four years, the Department of Public Health has urged residents to carry Narcan, flooding the city with more than half a million doses of the lifesaving medicine since 2021. But increasingly, drug users say residents are using Narcan as a tool to force them off the sidewalks. In recent months, six homeless people told The Standard they have been awoken by a stranger misusing, or threatening to misuse, the medicine while instructing them to move. 

“They’re using it like a weapon,” said Kenneth Byrd, who is homeless and addicted to fentanyl. “People are going around doing it just for kicks. It’s fucked up.” 

Because Narcan works by canceling out the effect of opioids, it sends users into painful withdrawals through an immediate sobering sensation — even if they were not overdosing. Once the medicine is administered, users become desperate for their next high, their body temperature fluctuates wildly, and their anxiety soars.

Narcan’s effects last roughly an hour, during which users are unable to get high — a sensation they describe as the worst pain imaginable.

“I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy,” said Henry Jones, who is homeless and said he too was awoken this year by someone injecting Narcan into his nose. “I’ve been shot seven times, and being Narcan’d like that was worse.”

Word of the attacks is spreading fear within the homeless community. But online, commenters are celebrating the tactic as an act of vigilante justice.

In a viral Instagram video, viewed more than 4 million times since it was posted July 9, a man uses the threat of Narcan to move a drug user off a sidewalk in the Tenderloin. The caption calls it the “best way to get somebody up in San Francisco.”

“Here, hand me the Narcan, he needs the Narcan, give him the Narcan,” the cameraman yells as he approaches a man nodding off on drugs. The man quickly stands up and walks away once he realizes what is happening.

“Yeah, you better get your ass up,” the cameraman yells. “You ain’t about to die out here.”

The video has more than 190,000 likes and around 2,000 comments, with many commending the cameraman’s approach. 

“The new strategy for moving bums out of your way,” one user commented. 

“Bro just solved the opiate crisis,” another said. 

In a message to The Standard, the person who posted the clip claimed to have not filmed it but didn’t share information about its creator or the motivation behind it.

Health experts are horrified. Dr. Ayesha Appa, who works in addiction science at UCSF, said improper use of Narcan should be considered assault. She urged San Franciscans to check whether people are breathing before administering the medicine.

“Using Narcan this way is not just mean spirited, it’s cruel,” Appa said. “When you send someone from a resting state to a heart rate of over 120, and say somebody has preexisting medical problems … it can be life-threatening.”

The Department of Public Health also condemned the use of Narcan on people who aren’t overdosing. 

"Individuals should administer naloxone if they recognize that someone is experiencing an overdose," the department said in a statement. "However, misusing this essential tool to intentionally cause pain or distress is inhumane."

This isn’t the first time fed-up San Francisco residents and business owners have found subversive ways to clear streets of encampments and drug activity. Controversially, some have installed garden planters to block homeless people from setting up camp, while others have used sprinklers or loud music to ward off disturbances.

In January 2023, a viral video showed the owner of a posh Jackson Square art gallery turning a hose on a homeless woman in front of his business. Later that year, police revealed that there had been a series of “bear spray attacks” against homeless people in the Marina.

Over the past year, as the city has adopted a more aggressive approach toward people living on the streets, residents of some troubled neighborhoods have reported an improvement in street conditions. But those who are homeless and suffering from addiction say it comes at a cost.

“They’re just adding more layers to our trauma,” Byrd said. “There’s people out here scared to go to sleep now. … Instead of uplifting us, they’d rather tear us down.”