Fentanyl users living on the streets of the Tenderloin say they’ve had enough. Many are chronically ill. They’re under near-constant surveillance by police. And now the drug doesn’t work like it used to.

The purity of fentanyl in San Francisco has plummeted in recent months, according to more than a dozen Tenderloin drug users and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The supply has been diluted with unidentified chemicals, plastics and hygiene products, they say, giving the weaker drug a new nickname: “soap.”

There were 248 admissions to rehabilitation centers between April and June — the highest number since at least January 2021, data shows. And many street drug users say the lifestyle they once had is dead.

“It’s not fun anymore,” Carmen Sierra said. “The drugs we’re using are so far removed from what we were originally trying to do.”