Opinion: Overdose deaths are at a record high. We need solutions, and we need them quickly.
The Toll of Fentanyl
Misty Terrigino talks about her 17-year-old daughter Kaylie Tallant, who died in 2021 due to “fentanyl toxicity.”
Joe Rondone/The Republic, Joe Rondone/The Republic
We have to have learned some lessons from crack and heroin that can be applied to fentanyl.
Right?
A recent series from The Arizona Republic showed that in the years since the 2018 Opioid Epidemic Act the problem of overdose deaths has gotten worse.
The number of opioid deaths went from 923 in 2017 to 2,006 last year, suggesting the state’s grim nickname “Fentazona” might have roots in truth.
So what can we do about it? What have we learned?
Start with the lingering animosity that so many African Americans feel.
Crack, seen as a drug of choice for blue-collar, urban Blacks, was aggressively criminalized, from use to sales. Prison cells swelled to the point that the industry privatized; there was money in locking up nonviolent, predominantly African American drug offenders.
Heroin, meantime, was politely categorized as an “opium epidemic” and treated as a public health crisis as it sliced through middle America and its white suburbs. Ultraliberal enclaves from Seattle to Boston created taxpayer-funded “safe sites” where addicts could shoot drugs in peace without the fear of accidental overdose or police raid.
‘FENTAZONA’: A cheap and deadly drug brought in by cartels has hijacked Arizona’s opioid crisis
What will be our response to fentanyl, a cheap and extremely powerful synthetic painkiller, responsible for a spike in overdose deaths during the pandemic?
What will elected prosecutors do differently?
It’s primarily killing young men ages 25 to 34. Do we care about this demographic? And if so, how will we show it?
Will addicts receive correction or compassion? Or will we find a way to walk the gray area between the black and white extremes?
Will the prosecutors we elect in November quickly identify the tools they need to get fentanyl deaths under control? Will they find underused laws that could apply to going after drug dealers who sell fentanyl-spiked pills to unwitting drug abusers? Will they lobby the Legislature for new tools in the fight — like a ban on pill press sales?
Would Arizona’s new attorney general be willing to go after technology companies that don’t adequately police their platforms, taking a page from the playbook used to reel in abuses on Backpage and Craigslist? Will they ignore the big companies in favor of going after low-level dealers who sell drugs to feed their own addictions?
The crisis goes beyond trafficking at the border
Or will they abdicate responsibility and just blame the federal government, since much of the illicit fentanyl supply makes it into the U.S. from Mexico?
This isn’t to suggest border security doesn’t play a role, but how much? And what’s the best solution?
It’s too easy to say “lock down the border,” it’s neither specific nor reasonable. Sure that message will fire up a certain group of voters, but will it lead to real solutions?
What about awareness?
Will our new schools superintendent find a way to unlock funding to help educate students on the dangers of fentanyl, letting kids and parents know that the drug can be fatal on a first dose and that laced pills can have uneven drug distributions, meaning that a couple of teens could split a pill, leaving one dead and the other to deal with the trauma?
And back to the issue of race, why is it that in Arizona, Black people and Native Americans have the highest rates of overdose deaths per capita. What can and should be done to provide special assistance where it’s clearly needed?
But it’s clear the work that started with Gov. Doug Ducey’s Opioid Epidemic Act isn’t done. We’ll have a new governor soon, will the new administration have a good plan that goes beyond banning “doctor shopping” and trying to reduce new addictions?
Have we learned anything from other street drug epidemics that could apply here? Because about five people across the state are dying of overdoses every day.
If we have learned anything from heroin or crack, we’d better start to apply it after the election. A huge chunk of our next generation is at stake.
Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @SayingMoore.
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