OLYMPIA – Fentanyl stole 1,803 lives in Washington state in 2022. The death rate has quintupled since 2019. Law enforcement sees street prices as low as $0.50 a pill, and one pill can kill. And as severe as the problem seems in cities, rural areas suffer more. On Wednesday, Gov. Jay Inslee convened experts for a public review of the state’s response to the crisis.
“Fentanyl was a 12-year battle for me. I just recently celebrated one year sober,” said Austin Hoberg, now an Oxford House resident in recovery. “This drug is very powerful. You could be good one minute and the next, it’s all you think about… The craving is that powerful.”
The state is funding awareness campaigns to warn of the drug’s deadly risks. It’s distributing naloxone to reverse overdoses. It’s engaging high-risk communities. The state is funding Oxford Houses and medication treatment facilities to promote recovery. It’s supporting police task forces disrupting the supply of the drug. And it’s investing settlement money recovered from irresponsible opioid manufacturers into solutions.
This session, Inslee requested legislation to require fentanyl education in schools. He proposed a strategy and corresponding budget to address the full scope of the crisis. And on Wednesday, he called for local leaders to confidently site medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) treatment centers. Legislators on both sides of the aisle are also sharing proposals and agreeing on the urgency of acting this session.
“Unfortunately, because of misperceptions, there’s been community resistance to locating treatment centers,” said Inslee. “There’s what you might call an old-fashioned approach of somehow expecting people’s willpower to overpower chemical addiction. So we have more work to do to get the community to accept this, because MOUDs are having tremendous success.”