Precious lives lost, families devastated.

No father should ever have to try and resuscitate his own son.

More people are dying than ever before from opioid overdoses.

On health matters, what you need to know about opioid addiction and what's being done to keep the drugs out of our communities.

We'll hear from those committed to fighting the epidemic, the opioid crisis right now on health matters.

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Ah life how we admire you.

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Good evening and welcome to health matters.

I'm Teresa Lukens.

There has been an opioid epidemic for years, but the crisis became even worse when more people turned from prescription tablets like hydrocodone or oxycodone to heroin.

And now there's a rapid increase in the use of fentanyl, which is more potent than most other opioids, including heroin.

Here, to talk about the scope of the problem and what's being done to fix it is Bill Hyslop.

Bill is the immediate former United States attorney for Eastern Washington.

He has practiced law in Spokane and eastern Washington for over 40 years.

Today in retirement, he is co-chairing a growing community effort to raise the awareness about the dangers of the illicit fentanyl and to help save lives.

Lieutenant Rob Boothe is a lifelong Spokane resident.

He is currently the lieutenant of tactical operations in the Investigations Bureau and oversees the Special Investigations Unit, the Property Crimes Unit and the Safe Streets Task Force.

And Chris Greer is the pharmacy manager at Providence St Luke's Rehabilitation Medical Center and the immediate past president and fellow of the Washington State Pharmacy Association.

Gentlemen, thank you all for being here.

A very important topic.

And Bill, I want to start with you.

Opioids have been used for years to help manage pain.

So why a crisis?

How big has it gotten and what are we really dealing with?

Thank you for sponsoring this program.

Thank you for helping us get the word out to the community because the growing use of Fentanyl is truly a community wide issue that we all have to know about.

Opioids are typically a plant based product that have been around.

They've been around in terms of the drug industry for years.

But what we are seeing now is something quite different.

We are seeing illicit fentanyl on the streets, smoking and on the streets, abused to worsen.

And throughout the United States, illicit fentanyl is different than medicinal fentanyl.

Doctors have appropriately used microscopic amounts of fentanyl is pain killers for years.

It's manufactured in a very controlled environment.

There's high quality control, and it's administered under very rigorous standards by the medical community and appropriately so.

What we are talking about here, though, is illicit fentanyl that can be purchased on the streets that is disguised in camouflaged and illegal drugs.

It's highly addictive.

It is manufactured from chemicals by drug cartels and trafficked across the southern border.

And it is now spreading across the United States, and it is here and it is killing people.

Chris, break these down just a little bit more for us from what Bill was talking about the legitimate drugs that are used for pain management.

But then the street drugs and the differences.

And and what we know to to understand about these drugs.

Yeah.

Opiate medications are available and have been used for pain control like morphine and codeine, oxycodone, Percocet, hydrocodone or Vicodin, methadone.

These are medicines that are used for pain medicine.

But when the fake copies of the medicines are made using fentanyl, you cannot tell how much families in that tablet.

And when you think it's an amount of medicine that you're used to taking, if you take a illicit supply of a manufactured product, that's that's from a reputable source , you can get much more, much less a medicine in that dose, and you can't really tell what's in there.

When we talk about morphine equivalents, we use the decimal system like milligrams.

But with fentanyl, we use micrograms.

So fentanyl in the medicine form is much, much more potent.

And when you have it in illicit source, it's very dangerous because it's the quality control obviously is not the same as a pharmaceutical pharmaceutical quality product, and it's nearly impossible to tell the difference.

You cannot tell by taste or smell.

And oftentimes, I think the products are manufactured to look very close to the actual medicine.

And so it's very dangerous.

And Lieutenant Booth, thank you for being here.

Talk about the current state of fentanyl in the Spokane community.

Fortunately, Spokane is reflecting what we're seeing on the national wide trend.

Spokane used to be rather insulated way back in the day.

However, all the trends that we're seeing nationally we can see right here in River City as well.

A good indicator is six months ago, you could purchase federal bill would be a street value of $15.

And currently speaking with the D.A.

in Phoenix, for example, you can purchase of pills for under a dollar.

The volume is just pouring in, and it used to be when our officers would make arrests.

You might find ten pills on somebody that was substantial and now under some of our undercover operations and such, it's uncommon to buy under 500.

We're also seeing not only in the pill form, which you guys alluded to earlier.

It's generally a blue pill.

They're called mixes, and they look exactly like an oxycodone bill or a Xanax.

Those are the two most popular, but we're now unfortunately moving past purchasing just some pills, and we're purchasing the powdered fentanyl, which means if we're getting it, it's out there, which also means there we have pill presses in Spokane they'll be churning this product out as well.

And what's extremely frightening, Lieutenant Boothe is that it can also be extremely dangerous to the officers at the scene.

Talk about that because as soon as they discover that it's fentanyl, it turns into a whole different situation.

Yes, a lot of it depends on how it's being challenged, if it's being found in the pill form and there's a binding agent and a lot of it is how it's being handled by the people the authors are contacting if they're handling it with their hands and such.

It's not because the original fear was that it being transdermal it can be process the skin that just being around it would expose the answer.

And we've seen some nationwide videos were officers been exposed.

Some of those the exposure is more of a panic attack because you're not seeing the symptomology of an overdose because everyone's scared.

It's terrifying.

You know, it's a micro mount of powder.

A great graphic is if you imagine a penny and you see Lincoln's beard and you if you can cover just the tip of his beard with fentanyl, that's a lethal overdose.

And so, as Chris alluded to, these are micro, , when as opposed to a pharmaceutical grade, when they're getting pressed out in one pill, there might be someone on and the next one will be a lot more, which is why the overdose deaths and synthetic over opioids have just skyrocketed nationwide, I think.

The CDC published a graph showing that in 2015, all opioid deaths in the country were right around 52,000, with synthetic opioids being just under 10,000 of those in five years later, just five years in 2020.

That number went from 10,000 synthetic over opioid overdose to almost 60,000.

Just because the quantities are so available, it's so cheap and it's out there.

So Bill keeping these drugs out of the community is the end game you put together.

This is community awareness project that you chair.

It's been in place now for about a year and a half.

Talk more about what's being done.

Are you making any headway?

We are.

We have a broad based community representatives from drug treatment, from the schools, from law enforcement, from federal law enforcement, local law enforcement.

We are bringing people together.

We hope later this spring to have a major forum for stakeholders, and we are very hopeful that by this fall, we will have a major community event which will invite students.

We'll invite parents, will invite teachers to learn more about what's going on.

Simply put, the growth of fentanyl coming into our community is now far beyond what is used by some people may consider street addicts and is being used by young adults at parties and students.

And and the very sad part of this is the one hot fentanyl pill can kill you in a matter of five minutes or less.

And first responders can't get there fast enough with Narcan or naloxone to try and save a life.

And so there are unfortunately many young lives being lost and the figures are increasing nationally in 2021. one DEA said that there were well over 100,000 overdose deaths, of which suddenly 64% are attributable to fentanyl laced pills.

And the figures are increasing at a staggering rate.

And so this is something on our back doorstep that affects every one of us, affects every family, good families and are not immune.

What people may consider themselves, Oh, that wouldn't happen to me, but it does.

And it is, and we all have to know about it.

Families that lose a loved one to an overdose experience overwhelming grief, not to mention feelings of guilt, sometimes shame.

Those that do speak out do so because they don't want any other family to live the same nightmare.

We have to talk to kids about the fact that there is a killer out there and it's not going away.

Dr. Jed Kaufman and his wife, Deborah Savran are using their painful experience in the hopes of helping others.

Their son, Gabe, died after taking just half of a fentanyl pill when he was just 17.

The pills looked exactly like pharmaceutical oxycodone pills and took one of those and laid down in his bed and lived for maybe three more minutes.

Roger and Kim Bartholomew fight back tears when they talk about the day their son died.

The emotions are still raw.

My daughter in law called us.

She was in a panic and said Ross is on the floor of the bathroom, and she had a two week old baby that she was nursing at the time when she discovered this and and she was trying to do CPR and trying to instruct the ambulance how to get in there and all this stuff.

At the same time, it was extremely traumatic and very difficult for her.

Very difficult.

Chris Armer's story is sadly typical.

A high school athlete from a stable family, but an injury led to an opioid addiction.

My whole life was based around getting and using these pills.

Everything that I love doing hunting, fishing, spending time with my family.

It was all out the window.

None of that mattered anymore.

I lost my job from the electrical company because of my use, because of my poor tardiness, calling in sick.

Often when I didn't have, when I couldn't find my pills that I needed.

When Chris can no longer support his 15 pill a day habit he turned to dealing drugs and was eventually arrested and sent to prison.

You think that you're just doing one little thing and starts with just one?

I'm just doing it for this.

You know, I have some back pain.

I'm just doing it to take care of my back pain, and it's so easy to just go from that one step into the deep water.

And you can see the full interviews on the KSPS Health Matters page.

And Bill, to talk about the families that we spoke to there, you worked closely with them.

Certainly, they were going through all of those emotions.

As you might imagine, it is very difficult for people to talk about the tragedies that have impacted their lives and many of them, they had no idea that they were facing such potential loss.

And these people have come forward, and the reason they've come forward is that they don't want the same type of tragedy and loss to happen to someone else.

And so they are telling their story and their greatest wish, their very greatest wish is that someone might learn from what has happened to them and their family and as a result, make a healthy decision and not pop a pill at a party, not be affected by that same peer pressure and stay away from illegal drugs.

Then stay away from these fake counterfeit drugs that you don't know if they contain fentanyl or not.

It really is a roulette sort of situation, and it is just so incredibly dangerous out there right now, and it impacts people that you would least expect.

Chris.

A while ago, we talked briefly about the two antidote drugs.

Let's talk more about those and how widely are they used?

I know officers use them there.

We're trying to get these particular drugs into the hands of even family members.

Talk about naloxone and Narcan.

Yeah.

So Narcan, that's just the brand name of naloxone drug.

So naloxone is an antagonist or it's like an antidote.

To the opiate medication pumps, the opiate medicine off the receptor, and so are law enforcement, and EMS carry naloxone, but it's appropriate for anyone who may be at risk for opiate overdose or who may witness opiate overdose.

They have no oxygen available to themselves, so it gets dispensed.

There's a statewide standing order if we're going to be able to get it.

You may be able to get a very low cost or free from community centers.

And also, it's available by prescription and our insurance plans.

Medicaid will cover doses of Narcan.

one common way it is dispensed is in a box like this.

It just has two doses in it.

And this is not to open the box, but so just to show everyone what it's like the box as a front packet that describes what you need to do if you identify somebody has symptoms of overdose or another way to think of it, that's less doesn't have as much loaded language for some people.

Use these medicines for pain as this as a breathing emergency.

So when people experience an overdose situation or a breathing emergency, it's like it's not a it's not always necessarily a big, exciting thing.

It's a slow falling asleep.

So opiate medications as they kick in a calming and especially if you combine them like in a party situation, if you combine them with alcohol or other medicines, it's not just one plus one is two.

It might be one plus one is five or one plus one is ten.

And so if you identify someone that needs Narcan, it's important to call 911 right away.

And try to if you have Narcan administer it.

So one way to tell if someone's having a breathing emergency is that they're not breathing.

So lighter skinned people might have blue lips or folks with darker skin might have ashy or white lips as an indicator, but not breathing.

And so the breathing is very, very slow.

It's less.

Normally we need to pull 12 breaths a minute.

so that breathing is so slow the oxygen moving.

That's why it's dangerous and life threatening.

So if you do need to give naloxone, the packet has instructions.

You just pop open the box and it has two doses in one for now.

The one in two or three minutes, if still needed.

because remember that we going to call 911 right away.

Because peel open the packet.

That's what it looks like.

Somebody opens it up.

An instruction sheet.

And it's just a little nasal applicator.

You just hold it with two fingers here.

You put your thumb on the button and you insert in someone's nose as far and you touch your fingers to their nostril.

And then when it's in their nostril and they're laying flat on their back is pressure and it's just a spray.

Naloxone cannot hurt you.

It's not toxic.

But if you have if you've been using opioids for a while and reverse all of your opioids, so it might take a minute or two to kick in.

And as people wake up, you have to stay with them because they're all of their opiate medicines has been blocked, and now they might have a feeling of wanting to use more.

And so while you're waiting with them for EMTs to arrive after you called them and said you got a breathing emergency, someone is not breathing.

And you can just stay with them and keep them safe, naloxone so might work for 30 to 90 minutes.

But sometimes the medicine will last longer.

So this is a life threatening situation, so people need to have medical care after it's administered.

OK, so always important to call 911 Lt Boothe.

This is common practice for officers to do what Chris just described.

Absolutely All our officers are qualified on it.

Every patrol officer we theyre issued two of the Narcan delivery systems that carry them on their person.

As a matter of routine, our officers said to read just based on proximity and some other factors.

They'll arrive at a lot of these scenes before our medics and they'll be the first one to respond to deliver the medication I've been on to cars.

Calls were officers themselves that they're exposed, and so when in doubt, they apply the Narcan in training.

It's important for people to understand.

Yeah, it's just like Chris said, it's it's not a big deal to use it.

It goes in the nostril and just gets sprayed.

And one thing that you know, everybody should understand that if you're get, you should have these things in your house.

But if you're going to have it like anything else, it has to be rehearsed.

So if you have these things and you think in a moment of stress or crisis, you're going to be able to calmly open the box and then deliver the system without having pre rehearsed a little bit.

You're probably going to be behind the curve.

And so, yeah, it's a sad state of affairs.

We should have these in our homes.

It doesn't cast a judgment on you at all, but like a fire extinguisher or anything else in your house if you don't know how to operate in a moment of tension.

I would hate for that to become even more tragic.

Bill, has the pandemic amplified the problem?

You know, I think there's some research out there about that that it has.

But this is a pandemic in and of itself that is spreading across the country and one that we all have to talk about.

And the biggest message that we have that any of us has is that this is something that has to be talked about.

There is a stigma with drug use and all my brother or my sister has a drug problem and I don't want to talk about it.

That's really well.

And when it comes to fentanyl, because particularly in more so than fentanyl, any other drug that's been out there, this is something we've all got to learn about, something we've got to talk about.

Got to have open discussions, have discussions about naloxone, how to use it and and talk about.

That someone may present you with a pill at a party or something and and you don't know what's in that pill.

You don't know whether or not that pill is going to kill you in five minutes or less.

And people have to know it's a community problem.

The mayor is involved, the chief of police, school superintendents, parents.

There are so many people that are getting involved and we have to have a big community discussion about this.

And Chris, where do we get our hands on naloxone?

It's so you can get it at your pharmacy and also the community centers, the health district, you know, I was just the other day I was in my pharmacy, I saw the hat in the locks on it, you know, get your naloxone kit here.

So it's widely available.

And if you had like, I'm imagining a grandmother who has a grandchild that might have a potential issue, they wanted to have the fire extinguisher in their house.

They're OK to have it just because you go, remember that if you might be at risk for a problem or if you might witness it, you're equally justified in having the medicine available.

And so it's important that people know that they can go get it.

It's oftentimes covered by insurance and there's a the one I just showed you was generic.

So the price is coming down.

If you had to pay cash, it may be a little over 100 hundred dollars to buy the packet of 2 doses.

But if that's the kind of thing you want to have, and so it's worth it, if that's what you need to do to get some.

But there's different ways to get it.

And Chris, where else can we find help if if we have a problem, if we suspect that a loved one has an issue with addiction, there are incredible programs in the Spokane, Portland area.

Now, the Washington line is a nice phone call away to get help right away.

Health District has programs.

There's web sites available.

Stop Overdose dot org is as a website.

Has lots of information and bit training videos on how to do things.

Its focus on Washington state, the National Substance Abuse and Health Administration, has a treatment link so you can go look.

If you need treatment and need help, you can go on and find providers.

So there's lots of available online or just one telephone call away to get help.

And Lieutenant Boothe, what would you like to see community members do to step up if there's anything that can be done to help with the issue of fentanyl, especially coming into the Spokane area?

What can we do if we want to step in and help?

But there's two prongs of that.

first is things like what Bill Bill is doing to where these large groups are gathering and they're getting all the community people together and educating people and just explaining it to them.

And that's the macro part of this.

The micro part of that is just being aware of what's going on in your family, knowing what's going on and then seeing and watching your children it and looking for behavior changes and being not being afraid to ask those really had questions because, you know, when you ask some of those, it's a reflection on yourself and those are hard things to do.

But you know, at the end of the day, the objective being you've got to protect them, and that's everybody.

And like they've said earlier, this is not a class problem.

This is not something regulated to a specific part of town.

This is this is all over are our officers are making these arrests.

There is not a part of the city where this has an infected it.

And so both at micro level of just the family unit and in finding out what's going on there and then being involved in things like Mr Hyslop is doing with his group and seeing the bigger portion and not being afraid to talk about the these issues and confront them as they are, because at the end of the day, it's rolling into our city, it's rolling into our country.

And if as long as people are going to take drugs and narcotics, this is going to continue.

And so, you know, there's a larger picture, but the biggest thing you can do is just be plugged into your family and have these discussions and don't be afraid of them.

And Bill one final thought, just a few seconds left.

Be aware.

Get engaged, ask questions, as these gentlemen have talked about, there's all kinds of information available on the internet about fentanyl.

The DEA Operation Prevention has incredible resources.

It's all about getting an educated and talking candidly to your family and talking to your kids and having those one-on-one discussions.

And amazingly, you will save lives.

And that is all about what this is about.

Thank you all very much for being here.

An extremely important topic.

And that will do it for this edition of Health Matters.

You'll find some helpful information on tonight's topic Be sure to join us February 17th when we talk about the COVID 19 Omicron variant and moving from a pandemic to an endemic.

Until next time, I'm Teresa Lukens.

Stay safe and good night.

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