Push to declare fentanyl abuse a public health crisis moves forward, with few details on how
KING COUNTY, Wash. - A committee of the King County Council approved a resolution it hopes will eventually be the groundwork for declaring fentanyl abuse a public health crisis.
The resolution now moves on to the full council for a vote on July 19. If passed, it then goes to the King County Executive Dow Constantine and Public Health.
The county’s overdose dashboard shows a steady rise in fentanyl overdose deaths over the last 13 years, accelerating from 50 in the first two quarters of 2019 to 240 during the same time period in 2022.
In the first six days of July 2022, the dashboard reported nine people have died in fentanyl-related deaths. That’s more than one a day.
Fentanyl has now surpassed methamphetamine as the drug with the most in overdoses in King County; more than heroin, prescription opioids, cocaine and benzodiazepine.
"It’s just a death trap waiting to happen," said council member Reagan Dunn, who sponsored the resolution.
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King County Council to consider declaring fentanyl a public health crisis
A committee of the King County Council will be meeting Thursday morning to consider legislation that would declare fentanyl a public health crisis.
Jasmin Robinson knows what it’s like to lose a son to a fentanyl overdose.
"My son is now a statistic," she said. "His friend said, ‘Let’s do a Percocet, and I know someone who can get it from.'"
Her son Jaylen, who was 21 years old, got a pill from someone selling on Snapchat.
"I think they paid $20, and he took one pill and he died," she recalled.
It wasn’t a Percocet.
RELATED: 'My son is now a statistic'; Tacoma mother warns of fentanyl as fatal overdoses soar
She said the medical examiner determined it was a very high dose of fentanyl, and only one quarter of the pill had dissolved into his system. He was 6’3’ and 240 pounds.
Counterfeit pain pills made with Fentanyl are a big reason why there’s a push to declare the drug and it’s abuse a public health crisis.
The sophistication of criminal enterprises making these counterfeit pills is only exacerbating the problem.
"Their ability to press a perfect-looking pill is so good that even pharmacists who handle these things cannot tell the difference between a real and fake one," said Shabbir Safdar, Executive Director of Partnership for Safe Medicines.
The nonprofit San Francisco-based group includes the Washington Pharmacy Association as one of its members. Safdar and his group have been tracking counterfeit prescription medications for 20 years.
"The criminals are illegally buying molds that look exactly like what you get from a pharmacy," he said. "They don't contain any of the actual ingredients, they have terrible quality control, and that's why people die so often."
It’s not just youth who are dying—elderly people who may have received a pain patch of prescription fentanyl following a surgery run the risk of addiction, and may try to find the drug somewhere other than at a pharmacy.
RELATED: DEA: 4 in 10 counterfeit pills contain fatal dose of fentanyl
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"We’ve also seen increases in the elderly population dying of overdoses, because they get cut off from medication and go and find another avenue that can be much more lethal," said Brad Finegood, Strategic Advisor for Public Health.
The council’s resolution asks for the King County Executive to create a strategy to combat the rise in fentanyl-related deaths. There are no details on how that will be done.