As fentanyl overdoses in California climb, here’s what Biden said he would do to stop it
The White House estimates that someone in the United States dies every five minutes from a drug overdose, topping 100,000 lives lost per year.
One of the primary drivers of this is fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid that is used for severe pain associated with advanced forms of cancer. Up to 100 times stronger than morphine and impossible to differ from similar drugs by sight, smell or taste, a little fentanyl can be deadly — especially if the person does not know it is present.
Fentanyl kills more than 70,000 Americans a year, President Joe Biden said earlier this month in his State of the Union address.
Sitting with Dr. Jill Biden, the first lady, for the State of the Union was Doug Griffin, a father from Newton, New Hampshire, who knows the pain of fentanyl. Griffin wrote the first lady a letter about his daughter, Courtney, who had a contagious laugh and was her sister’s best friend.
“He shared a story all too familiar to millions of Americans and many of you in the audience,” Biden said. “Courtney discovered pills in high school. It spiraled into addiction and eventually death from a fentanyl overdose. She was just 20 years old.”
In the eight years since Courtney died in 2014, Griffin has pushed to change the stigma around addiction and offer better substance-abuse services.
Biden, addressing Griffin in his State of the Union, committed to implementing more drug detection machines, inspecting cargo and stopping pills and powder at the border in addition to heightening penalties for fentanyl trafficking. He also said the government would work with mail carriers, like FedEx, to inspect more packages for drugs.
Border personnel seized over 23,000 pounds of fentanyl over the last several months, Biden said.
“Americans know that addressing our nation’s fentanyl crisis should, and must, be bipartisan,” Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, said in a statement following the State of the Union, “and I applaud President Biden for announcing steps tonight to do just that.”
Fentanyl in California
Kiley brought Rocklin parents Laura and Chris Didier to the State of the Union. Two days after Christmas in 2020, at age 17, their son Zach died because of a fentanyl overdose. He had no prior history of drug use, was an Eagle Scout and soccer player.
The Didiers, too, have committed themselves to raising awareness around the dangers of fentanyl.
There were 6,843 opioid-related overdose deaths statewide in 2021, according to preliminary data from the California Department of Public health, 5,722 of which were related to fentanyl.
That year, the most recent for which data was available, there were 224 fentanyl-related overdose deaths among California teenagers from 15 to 19 years old.
Deaths related to fentanyl have been “increasing at an unpredictable pace,” according to the CDPH.
Often, fentanyl is laced with other drugs like heroin or put into counterfeit pills, according to the CDPH, meaning the person who bought them does not know it or a fentanyl-like substance is there. Recently, brightly-colored pills, powders and blocks have sprung up in California. Called “rainbow” fentanyl, the CDPH cautions that this can resemble sidewalk chalk or candy.
Authorities test for fentanyl using test strips, which individuals too can purchase. “Even if the test is negative, caution should be taken as test strips might not detect other fentanyl-like drugs, such as carfentanil,” the CDPH recommends.
Carfentanil, used as a tranquilizing agent for elephants, is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times more potent than fentanyl.
More fentanyl has been seized by border officials in San Diego and Imperial counties than at any of the nation’s more than 300 ports of entry — an “epicenter for fentanyl trafficking,” according to an August 2022 report by the U.S. Attorney General’s office for the Southern District of California.
Social media
Investigators say that most of the ingredients for illicit fentanyl comes from China, according to an unclassified 2020 U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency intelligence report. DEA Administrator Anne Milgram told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Feb. 15, 2023, that Mexican cartels buy and process fentanyl into pills disguised as other drugs. Two cartels are responsible for most of that fentanyl, Milgram said, which DEA is working to combat.
The cartels sell a lot of it on social media, Milgram said. DEA has seized fentanyl in all 50 states.
“It is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced,” Milgram said.
Drug use skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This coincided with an increase in mental health concerns worldwide under stress from the virus and lockdowns.
Biden said that, in addition to cracking down on drugs, more attention must go toward mental health resources, including holding social media companies accountable.
“When millions of young people are struggling with bullying, violence, trauma, we owe them greater access to mental health care at their schools,” Biden said during the State of the Union. “We must finally hold social media companies accountable for experimenting they’re doing — running [on] children for profit.”
How to prevent an overdose
The CDPH recommends reading the Overdose Prevention Toolkit for the most current information on handling an overdose. Naloxone, sold under the brand name Narcan, can reduce or reverse the effects of opioids.
If you think someone is overdosing, follow these steps:
▪ Call 911 and give naloxone.
▪ Keep the person awake and breathing.
▪ Lay the person on their side to prevent choking.
▪ Stay with the person until 911 responders arrive.
This story was originally published February 21, 2023 at 6:30 AM.
