As Overdoses Soar, More States Decriminalize Fentanyl Screening Strips

Andy Miller

With time working out in the 2022 legislative session, Georgia lawmakers took up a monthly bill to control uncooked milk.

An amendment out of the blue acquired tacked onto the Residence model of the invoice, although the new wording had nothing at all to do with dairy. The language called for legalizing the use of strips that test medication for fentanyl, a strong artificial opioid fueling a wave of deadly overdoses across Georgia and the U.S.

The amendment, said Sen. Jen Jordan, an Atlanta Democrat who sponsored it, was “a commonsense solution to help you save lives.”

The revised milk invoice passed overwhelmingly on the final day of the General Assembly session. If the invoice does not attract a veto from Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, Georgia will join a developing listing of states decriminalizing the use of fentanyl testing strips as the drug’s scourge has unfold across the nation.

Governors in New Mexico and Wisconsin this 12 months signed expenditures allowing for take a look at strips in people states, and legislatures in Tennessee and Alabama not long ago passed related legislation. In Pennsylvania, even though a condition regulation prohibits examination strips, the mayors of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have ordered bans on prosecuting individuals possessing them. The state’s legal professional general explained he will not charge men and women for acquiring the exam strips. Alaska condition well being officials, horrified by a surge of overdose deaths, have started off supplying out free of charge test strips. A vending device in Ohio offers the fentanyl-detecting gadgets alongside naloxone, a treatment for reversing overdoses.

But the Florida legislature balked this year at a monthly bill that would decriminalize the screening strips. Fentanyl exam gadgets — prohibited beneath drug paraphernalia legislation adopted decades in the past — remain unlawful in about half of states, drug coverage gurus say.

Quite a few public wellness and dependancy authorities, although, encourage the speedy tests units as what’s acknowledged as a “harm reduction” tactic to help prevent overdose deaths from illicit medicine that people may well not know are laced with fentanyl.

“We hope all the states would appear to realize the potential risks of contamination are so higher and that fentanyl take a look at strips empower a human being using medication to know no matter if they have fentanyl,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the Nationwide Institutes of Well being.

Avenue variations of fentanyl, an authorised painkiller that is currently being generated illegally, mainly arrive into the U.S. from Mexico. Fentanyl is up to 100 times as effective as morphine. It is typically located in what is bought as heroin — generally having its spot entirely. It also can be blended into cocaine, methamphetamine, and counterfeit street drugs sold as opioid prescription drugs — substances that quite a few prospective buyers are not expecting to incorporate fentanyl.

The distribute of fentanyl has assisted guide to a spectacular rise in drug overdose fatalities. Synthetic opioids — which includes fentanyl — have been concerned in about two-thirds of U.S. drug overdose fatalities in the 12-thirty day period interval that finished in November 2021. And 3-quarters of overdose fatalities from cocaine past calendar year had been associated with fentanyl, Volkow claimed.

“Fentanyl is so powerful that it can stop your respiratory at very lower doses,” she said.

The fentanyl epidemic also “has exacerbated racial inequities,” Volkow additional. From 2019 to 2021, fentanyl overdose deaths additional than tripled between youngsters — and surged fivefold between Black teenagers, according to an analysis of Centers for Condition Handle and Prevention facts developed by the advocacy group Households In opposition to Fentanyl.

Past month, the Drug Enforcement Administration despatched a letter to federal, state, and local regulation enforcement officers warning of a nationwide spike in fentanyl-associated mass-overdose gatherings. “Fentanyl is killing People at an unprecedented amount,” mentioned DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “Already this 12 months, various mass-overdose situations have resulted in dozens of overdoses and deaths.”

The screening strips are affordable, costing about $1. A drug user can consider a smaller quantity of the compound, insert water, and dip a strip briefly into the answer. If a single red stripe seems on the strip, fentanyl is present two stripes necessarily mean none of that drug is located.

A downside is that the exam strips don’t gauge the total of fentanyl in the drug.

Nonetheless, the strips are efficient in detecting “very compact amounts of fentanyl,” stated Brown College epidemiologist Brandon Marshall, part of a staff that has researched illicit drug people and the equipment in Rhode Island. Several of the members who tried using the strips, Marshall said, discarded the material if fentanyl was present, made use of the drug with an individual else existing, or experienced naloxone available in the course of use.

A similar research of North Carolina intravenous drug users located 3 in 4 folks indicated that fentanyl strips made them really feel greater ready to guard on their own from overdose.

In South Carolina, which has produced fentanyl take a look at strips offered, the point out sends an anonymous study to any one who receives them. Sara Goldsby, director of the South Carolina Division of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Providers, said survey responses suggest that people today who use the strips report making use of less prescription drugs, with some picking not to use the prescription drugs altogether, and that they experience safer in preventing overdoses.

The screening strips, Brown’s Marshall included, “are not going to be a silver bullet to tackle the overdose crisis, but they can be an significant device to aid folks remain harmless.”

In Ga, in which the tests bill awaits the governor’s acceptance, public wellness officers claimed fentanyl-associated overdose deaths jumped following the get started of the covid-19 pandemic, doubling between May possibly 1, 2020, and April 30, 2021, in comparison with the very same span in 2019 and 2020.

And fentanyl-associated overdoses recently spiked in Savannah, Georgia, according to Dr. Jay Goldstein, health-related director of the unexpected emergency section at Memorial Wellbeing. He claimed that a lot of overdose sufferers reported they had been shocked at the potency of the drug they had eaten, but he fears that offering them strips will not stem its use.

“Sad to say, but some customers want fentanyl in their drugs for the reason that it presents them a a lot more rigorous large, though the chance of crashing and burning is much even worse,” he claimed.

Present drug paraphernalia guidelines could discourage states or corporations from implementing for grants to buy take a look at strips or making applications to distribute them, claimed Jon Woodruff, senior legislative legal professional for the Legislative Examination and Public Coverage Association. But in many states that have not decriminalized the strips, individuals who have the papers aren’t being prosecuted.

In Ga, “people can be charged, but it’s generally not prosecuted, particularly if it’s these tests strips,” explained Pete Skandalakis, govt director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, which supported the testing strips amendment.

Irrespective of the existing Ga prohibition, the Atlanta Hurt Reduction Coalition organization mentioned it distributes the strips to individual drug end users and other neighborhood members.

In the meantime, people in Ga who have noticed cherished ones die from fentanyl overdoses assistance producing the testing strips a lot more out there.

Doreen Barr of Fayette County in suburban Atlanta misplaced a son to a mix dose of heroin and fentanyl seven many years ago. She has set up a nonprofit basis in Ryan Barr’s title to educate folks about addiction.

Barr explained she believes tests strips can conserve lives.

“Why not have the fentanyl strips?” she said. “Cocaine or a faux capsule can have fentanyl in it. Just one time could eliminate you. If they experienced a examination strip, possibly they would not choose it.”

KHN South Carolina correspondent Lauren Sausser contributed to this report.