Comparing it to Russian roulette, Billy Sims, Walker County coroner, said illegal pills containing the synthetic opioid fentanyl are fueling a drug overdose crisis in the county.
Sims said there have been 189 coroner case deaths in Walker County this year, and about 80 of those deaths were caused by drug overdoses. There were another 45 nursing home deaths, he said at the Walker County Board of Commissioners meeting Thursday night.
“They’re thinking (pill takers), ‘Well, I did it last week at a party and got by with it,'” Sims said, but too often that choice has led to a life-threatening drug overdose.
During the meeting, Mark Askew, District 2 commissioner, asked how many of those overdose deaths were fentanyl-related. Sims blamed fentanyl for a majority of those overdose deaths.
On Friday after checking his records, Sims said there have been 49 fentanyl deaths in Walker County this year, and 30 more overdose deaths that were caused by other drugs.
(READ MORE: States look for solutions as US fentanyl deaths keep rising)
Sims said fentanyl pills that have been pressed into shapes that look like candy are turning up all over the nation and in Walker County. Pills containing fentanyl resembling SweeTarts were found on the body of an overdose victim in the county as recently as Sunday, he said.
That was one of two drug overdose deaths Sunday, Sims said in a followup phone interview Friday. He warned parents to check their childrens’ Halloween trick-or-treating haul to guard against the candy-like shapes being pressed and distributed by illegal drug manufacturers.
“If it’s open (candy), or been tampered with, throw it away,” Sims said, “because these drug freaks, they don’t care.”
This week, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration repeated a similar warning to the public about brightly-colored fentanyl in a news release. The administration and its law enforcement partners said what’s being called “rainbow fentanyl” pills, powder, and blocks have been seized in 26 states.
(READ MORE: State of Walker County Address describes growth, plans for future)
“The men and women of the DEA are relentlessly working to stop the trafficking of rainbow fentanyl and defeat the Mexican drug cartels that are responsible for the vast majority of the fentanyl that is being trafficked in the United States,” said Anne Milgram, the administrator of the administration in the release.
At least one expert has cast doubt on the fentanyl scare for Halloweeen.
“One obvious hole in these concerns is that drugs tend to cost more than candy – marijuana edibles, for example, run somewhere in the neighborhood of a dollar or two per dose or more,” Joel Best, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, wrote at The Conversation. “Fentanyl is considerably more expensive. It is not unreasonable to wonder just what a fentanyl dealer’s overarching goal might be if in passing the drug off as candy.”
Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin, the drug administration said, and 100 times more potent than morphine. Just two milligrams of fentanyl — about 10 to 15 grains of table salt — is considered a lethal dose.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the release, in 2021, 107,622 Americans died of drug overdoses, and 66% of those deaths were related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. The CDC also said drug overdose is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.
From 2010 to 2020 in Georgia, the number of opioid-related overdose deaths increased by 207%, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health’s website. In 2020, the most recent statistics listed, 67% of drug overdose deaths in Georgia were related to opioids — a total of 1,309 deaths.
Contact Andrew Wilkins at awilkins@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6659. Follow him on Twitter @tweetatwilkins.