Experts: Treatment, awareness key to battling fentanyl crisis

A key factor in the battle against fentanyl is raising awareness among the public of the opioid’s danger and treatment opportunities that are available, experts said Tuesday.

Fentanyl and the ongoing opioid epidemic were the topics of an online town hall hosted in the evening by State Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa. He and his guests sought to shed light on the crisis impacting the North Bay and the rest of the nation.

Authorities stressed that fentanyl is smuggled into the U.S. from other countries and once here is sold on the streets or via social media. Furthermore, it can be accidentally consumed when people unknowingly take drugs laced with the opioid.

“These days you can die of an overdose never having been addicted to an opioid,” said Dr. Mario San Bartolome, a California Society of Addiction Medicine board member and medical director of the Social Determinants of Health Center for Innovation.

Much of Tuesday’s discussion echoed the sentiments of Sonoma County experts who were part of a recent series of Press Democrat stories about the fentanyl crisis and potential solutions for combating.

Fentanyl’s toxicity makes it 100 times more powerful than morphine — even a trace amount of it can be deadly. It also can be absorbed through the skin or inhaled when in a powder.

Since 2017, Sonoma County has tracked more than 500 overdose deaths, including 173 in 2020. At least 70% of those deaths were linked to fentanyl, according to county data.

From February 2017 to December 2017, the opioid was present in 14 overdoses in Sonoma County. In 2018, fentanyl deaths rose to 31 and hovered around that same number in 2019.

In 2020, 111 deaths were linked to fentanyl, according to county records.

Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that opioids were linked to the vast majority of the nation’s 100,306 drug overdoses that took place over a 12-month period ending in April 2021.

About 10,000 of those overdoses happened in California, according to Dodd’s office.

“We must go after these distributors, and we are. But we also must educate parents and teenagers about the dangers of drug use,” the senator said during Tuesday’s discussion.

The notion was shared by Mona Leonardi, who co-founded the Napa-based fentanyl awareness nonprofit the Michael Leonardi Foundation.

Her son, Michael, died from fentanyl poisoning Feb. 24, 2020, at the age of 20. He’d purchased fentanyl via Snapchat from a drug dealer who advertised it as a Percocet pill, according to the foundation’s website.

Leonardi said lawmakers need to find someway to block opioids from getting into this country. She added that measures also must be taken against drug dealers who sell via social media.

“They’re out preying on our children,” she said.

A handful of viewers and listeners pitched solutions, including a Forestville woman who suggested drug-sniffing dogs be used at post offices.

“That’s kind of a practical way to deal with it onsite,” she said.

A Windsor woman asked whether anything could be done to rein in doctors who legally prescribe opioids.

San Bartolome responded that doctors have been scrutinized for years and some no longer prescribe fentanyl.

The matter revolves around illegal access to the opioid, which comes “from other places,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Colin Atagi at colin.atagi@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @colin_atagi