LYNN LA • JULY 25, 2023
With a death toll of more than 7,000 Californians in 2021, the opioid epidemic has become one of the state’s most vexing issues. The Legislature is considering several minor bills related to fentanyl — including creating an anti-fentanyl-abuse task force and increasing fines for dealers — but Republican lawmakers voice frustration that the state isn’t doing enough to end the drug crisis.
Fentanyl has been at the center of some of the more dramatic moments this session. In April, Democrats avoided efforts by Republican Assemblymembers to force a floor vote on fentanyl bills by agreeing to debate the bills at a later special committee hearing. Days later, residents whose loved ones died from overdoses walked out of the hearing room as the Senate Public Safety Committee debated (and ultimately killed) a bill that would have required giving fentanyl dealers notice that they can be charged with homicide. And in May, a select Assembly committee held a five-hour hearing on fentanyl that included testimony from grieving family members on the verge of tears.
To learn more about what’s driving California’s opioid crisis, CalMatters has a new explainer compiled by CalMatters’ health reporter Ana B. Ibarra, data reporter Erica Yee and justice reporter Nigel Duara.
Together, they dive into several aspects, including:
What makes fentanyl so dangerous: The drug is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. And depending on a person’s body size and tolerance, just 2 milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal. Its deadliness is one of the reasons why proponents of harsher criminal sentences for fentanyl dealers argue that comparing the current crisis with the crack cocaine epidemic is a false equivalence.
The explainer also explores why it’s difficult for patients to access naloxone, the medication that reverses overdose.
A timeline covering the last 28 years of the crisis: In 1995, the Food and Drug Administration approved OxyContin, the painkiller that eventually became the main culprit in the opioid epidemic. Now, nearly three decades later, 2023 is on track to be the deadliest year in California for fentanyl overdoses. Learn what has happened in between, and which California counties have the most staggering overdose rates.
What law enforcement is doing about it: With 76% of adults citing violence and street crime as a problem in their community, per a February Public Policy Institute of California poll, there’s growing scrutiny over the effectiveness of policing and prosecuting fentanyl-connected crimes. The explainer details what the state’s doing about fentanyl seizures, trafficking at the border and jailing dealers. Check it out.
Speaking of fentanyl: Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer is seeking $5.2 billion in bond funding to combat fentanyl overdoses, The Sacramento Bee reported Monday.
Jones-Sawyer credited May’s select committee hearing on fentanyl with helping shape the proposal. The bond would include $2 billion for substance abuse treatment, $2 billion for youth-targeted drug education programs, $400 million for harm reduction programs, and funding for other anti-drug services.
As chairperson of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, the Democrat from Los Angeles has received blowback from Republican lawmakers for not passing bills out of committee that would enact harsher penalties for dealers, as well as his temporary hold on all fentanyl bills in March.
Describing his bond proposal, Jones-Sawyer told The Bee that current efforts are “poking at the problem” but he wants to “go ahead and knock it out once and for all.”
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