Title
A MOTION declaring fentanyl-related overdoses a public health crisis and requesting the executive to identify strategies and recommendations regarding the county's public health response.
Body
WHEREAS, over the past two decades the United States has experienced a growing crisis in opioid-related overdose deaths, and
WHEREAS, during that time, the annual number of overdose deaths in the United States has more than quadrupled from approximately seventeen thousand five hundred in 2000 to more than eighty-one thousand in 2020, and
WHEREAS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 2020 marked the highest number of overdose deaths ever reported in one year, and
WHEREAS, while overdose deaths were already increasing in the months preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, the latest numbers suggest an acceleration of overdose deaths during the pandemic, and
WHEREAS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reports that illicitly manufactured fentanyl appears to be the primary driver of increases in overdose deaths, and
WHEREAS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently published a report showing the economic cost of fatal opioid overdoses in 2017 totaled eight billion five hundred million dollars in Washington state and more than five hundred fifty billion dollars nationwide, and
WHEREAS, fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use as an analgesic and anesthetic that is approximately fifty times more potent than heroin and one hundred times more potent than morphine, and
WHEREAS, the Drug Enforcement Agency reported in 2020 that the increase in trafficking, distribution and abuse of illicitly produced fentanyl is primarily responsible for fueling the record-level overdose deaths observed nationwide, and
WHEREAS, between 2018 and 2020, fentanyl-related overdose deaths increased one hundred sixty-four percent in King County, and
WHEREAS, three hundred ninety-six fentany...
Click here for full text