Fentanyl deaths in King County almost double in 2018

Fentanyl continues to be one of the leading causes behind the region’s opioid crisis. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Newly-released data from the King County Health Department shows that opioids like fentanyl and heroin continue to be the most common drugs leading to fatal overdoses, with almost half of all drug and alcohol deaths occurring in Seattle alone.

70 percent increase in fentanyl deaths doesn’t tell whole story

“We need to recognize that people continue to use drugs such as methamphetamine because, in the context of their lives, drugs provide one way to manage challenges they face every day,” UW Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute Principal Research Scientist Caleb Banta-Green said in a news release.

As fentanyl-related deaths have doubled from 2017 to 2018, the potent opioid continues to cause problems across the county. This increase is largely related to “illicitly manufactured fentanyl.”

“People will often try to use pills instead of heroin because it’s seen as safer,” Banta-Green told MyNorthwest back in December 2018. “Historically, that might even have been true, but now you’re getting what looks like an oxycodone 30 tablet, and there’s no oxycodone in it at all — it’s fentanyl of unknown quantity and purity.”

Public Health officials say despite that increase, life-saving measures are still working. There are over 100 locations across King County where people can get treatment for opioid abuse. Additionally, more than 2,000 overdoses were reversed using Naloxone.

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The report noted that 77 percent of drug and alcohol deaths involved multiple substances. Deaths involving “both an opioid and a stimulant, such as cocaine or methamphetamine” increased by 85 from 2009 to 2018. A majority of all drug and alcohol deaths — 67 percent — occurred in while males, primarily between the ages of 50 and 59.

But perhaps the oddest statistic to come out of King County’s report relates to sewage.

“Testing of Seattle’s sewer water continues to indicate one of the highest levels of methamphetamine measured compared to 96 other cities in 26 countries,” it reads.