Drug overdoses have surged during the pandemic, and 82 homeless San Diegans died of overdoses involving fentanyl last year, a five-fold increase from The uptick in fentanyl-related deaths contributed to a nearly 72 percent increase in accidental illicit drug deaths among homeless San Diegans investigated by the county last year.
Residents, business owners, service providers and public safety workers say they have noticed more open drug use and erratic behavior in homeless camps and on streets the past couple years, especially in downtown San Diego.
San Diego Fire-Rescue Department data shows city paramedics provided opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone — commonly sold as Narcan — to homeless patients times last year, up 44 percent from Regional leaders and treatment providers are grappling with how to respond as the county begins to emerge from a pandemic that has exacerbated addiction and mental health challenges and forced service agencies to dial back in-person offerings to comply with coronavirus protocols.
City and county officials are pledging to step up efforts to tackle soaring substance abuse issues but many of the details of their plans have yet to be aired publicly, including a county commitment to a new strategy that lessens barriers to care and city plans to invest in new services. Brittany, who spends most nights sleeping on Pacific Beach streets and struggles with addiction herself, is haunted by the drug crisis.
The year-old said eight of her friends died of drug overdoses in the last year. She suspects fentanyl, which is now often covertly added to other drugs, played a role in many of those deaths.
Brittany tears up as she remembers them. Most recently, she lost Robert. Experts say experienced and new drug users alike are often caught off guard by the potency of fentanyl, a reality that Brittany said has led her to worry other friends could be next. There have been close calls too. On a recent Sunday night, she hurried to give two men naloxone she received from a state-funded program after both overdosed at a Midway District homeless camp.
Desperate, Brittany said she begged a customer who pulled into the drive-thru to call Two-thirds of the people who had overdosed had been prescribed opioid painkillers at some time in the past. Starting in , a widespread fentanyl problem started north of the border ahead of the US outbreak.
The agency sent its first alert about fentanyl in Most of the deaths were in Ontario, a province bordering New England and Midwestern states that have seen the biggest influx of fentanyl. Most of the US heroin sold east of the Mississippi River is brown powder heroin from Colombia, easily adulterated with fentanyl, unlike sticky black tar heroin sold in Western states. The Canadian government began monitoring opioid prescriptions in , and started medical education to urge doctors to prescribe less in the first place.
Two years later, it halted sales of Oxycodone, a prescription painkiller prone to abuse. In , the DEA started tallying up what kinds of synthetic opioids it was seizing. The CDC started asking more labs to test for fentanyl in overdose victims, and recommended public health agencies and paramedics distribute more naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses.
Stay far away. When talking to drug users about fentanyl, the researchers found some common themes: One was that the drug increased their opioid tolerance so that heroin no longer gave them the same high it once had. To avoid the pain of withdrawal, they said, they kept taking fentanyl. Heroin users in other places have also noticed the change in the heroin supply.
Drug users told the researchers that fentanyl drugs were hugely variable, with some only slightly stronger than heroin and others, such as carfentanil, far stronger.
Carfentanil, which is hundreds of times more potent than heroin, figured in a remarkable 53 hours in Huntington, West Virginia, that killed two people and saw 26 others overdose in August of Overdose cases have risen substantially over the past year in the region, with Passwaters admitting that responding to scenes of an overdose are becoming almost as commonplace as conducting sting investigations like this one.
We are just trying to get to the head of the snake. Heroin users have in many cases, become small-time dealers to help feed their habit, so Passwaters says the snake may have one massive head, but it also has a countless number of tails, with new ones seemingly sprouting up daily. While officers try to take down and cut off each new tail, the head of the snake they seek seems further and further away.
As he finishes his sentence, a familiar voice crackles on the radio alerting everyone listening on the encrypted line that the drug mule is getting closer. Seconds later, a large truck passes driven by a middle aged female singing at the top of her lungs.
As she passes, her head turns and there is a moment where her eyes seem to lock with Passwaters. Responses to this perceived adulteration varied, including information gathering, attraction, avoidance, taking precautions, and acceptance. Abstract Since , heroin-related overdose deaths in the United States have risen six-fold, a rise unaccounted for by the expanding user population.
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