Fentanyl danger a key topic at Yakima Overdose Awareness Day event

More than 100 people gathered at Sarg Hubbard Park in Yakima on Wednesday to share stories of loss, struggle and recovery as well as worrying statistics about fentanyl’s presence in the state.

The event was one of hundreds worldwide in recognition of International Overdose Awareness Day.

Dr. Gillian Zuckerman, a family doctor working on Connect, an opioid addiction program run by Community Health of Central Washington, started by sharing a story about her father. Zuckerman said her father, also a doctor, was found unconscious surrounded by oxycodone pills. He died in the hospital after being taken off life support.

Similar stories were shared by a handful of attendees who lost loved ones to prescription opioids, heroin laced with fentanyl and other drugs.

Zuckerman said aside from more holistic treatment methods, the stigma of drug addiction needs to be lifted. Negative attitudes toward drug addiction, Zuckerman said, have kept access to life-saving drugs like naloxone, which can reverse the symptoms of an opioid overdose, minimal in many communities.

“We need to make naloxone a lot more available. Naloxone is a life-saving medication that’s going to catch the folks who are not ready or willing to enter into treatment but whose lives we can still save and have an opportunity to work with them,” Zuckerman said.

Growing numbers

Yakima, like the rest of the country, has been seeing overdose-related deaths skyrocket in the last few years.

In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 91,799 drug overdose deaths. A provisional number shared by the CDC estimates over 100,000 drug overdose deaths occurred in 2021, the highest for any one year in the country’s history.

Drug overdoses in Yakima County have been rising for the last four years. Overdose deaths in the county more than doubled from 40 in 2018 to 98 in 2021, according to the Yakima County Coroner’s Office.

County Coroner Jim Curtice said 49 overdose deaths have been confirmed in 2022, with an estimated 50-60% related to fentanyl.

The rising number of overdose deaths has been linked to the proliferation of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid up to 80-100 times more potent than drugs like morphine. Even a minuscule dose no greater than two or three milligrams can be fatal to the average adult.

Fentanyl

Dr. Kelly Olson, a Canadian neuroscientist and researcher, shared the results of a study done by Millennium Health, a San Diego-based drug testing laboratory during the gathering.

The study found that Washington was in the top 10 across the country for fentanyl co-positivity rates among drugs like heroin, meth and cocaine. That means drug users in Washington, when tested, were found to have fentanyl present in their system, most likely introduced through consumption of fentanyl-laced drugs.

Between 2019 and 2021, Washington saw a 644% increase in co-positivity rates between heroin and fentanyl, the fourth-highest increase in the country. During that same period, co-positivity rates in meth rose 801% and cocaine co-positivity rates rose 246%. These increased rates put Washington in seventh and sixth place respectively.

Zuckerman, who works with opioid addicts, said the approach to addiction needs to be reworked. Rehabilitation methods based on the Biopsychosocial model, Zuckerman said, help account not only for physical rehabilitation but also for the emotional and societal factors that lead to addiction in the first place.

“I think what the Biopsychosocial model acknowledges is that addiction cannot be treated as though it’s just a problem with the brain. It is very much in the setting of what people are dealing with in their lives,” Zuckerman said. “What the model allows us to do is to really look at the whole person and treat all of the elements that are contributing to their struggle and their disease.”

Treatment

Zuckerman said making addiction treatments available also is important. In Yakima, she said, this means expanding access to Medication Assisted Therapy, which uses medicines like suboxone and methadone to help wean patients off opioid dependency.

Comprehensive Healthcare expanded its Medication Assisted Therapy clinic in Yakima earlier this year.

Aside from increasing access to these treatments for the general public, Zuckerman said MAT has to be expanded to high-risk populations like prisoners. According to studies across the country, inmates can be up to 40 times more likely to die of an opioid overdose than the average member of the general population following the first two weeks after their release.

“I want to see more expansion of MAT into some of our community partners. This medication should be available through primary care and people should be able to walk into their primary care office and get this relatively easily. I would love to see every primary care office in Yakima offering these medications,” Zuckerman said.

For more resources, visit the Washington State Healthcare Authority’s Opioid Treatment Program website.