Deaths tied to illicit fentanyl have skyrocketed, with more than 13 times as many people losing their lives in 2021 as in 2016.
At a news conference Tuesday, county officials were joined by Juli Shamash, whose 19-year-old son Tyler died four years ago of an overdose involving fentanyl.
“Fentanyl is killing everyone and anyone,” Shamash told reporters. “To the parents out there that think, ‘Not my child,’ think again. This is killing straight-A students, track stars. All roots. All religions. All socioeconomic groups.”
The findings underscore the threat of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid much more powerful than heroin that has been found mingled with methamphetamine and other illegal drugs and consumed unknowingly in counterfeit pills.
Across the country, roughly 70,000 people die annually from overdoses linked to synthetic opioids, a number that has more than doubled in three years, according to federal figures.
In the. County, the number of deaths linked to fentanyl rose from 109 in 2016 to 1,504 in 2021, amounting to a 1,280% increase, the Public Health Department found. Last year, fentanyl was involved in 55% of overdose deaths across the county, and among 12- to 17-year-olds who died of an overdose, the vast majority—92%—tested positive for the drug.
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