Spokane — With 27 years of work in the opioid addiction field, Caleb Banta-Green said he didn’t think it could get as bad as today’s big rise in fentanyl use.
Fentanyl is killing people from accidental overdoses in higher numbers than any other drugs, he said. For a Sept. 13 Gonzaga University talk, he used Spokane reports showing that fentanyl deaths spiked in 2021 — far surpassing overdose from methamphetamine, heroin or cocaine.
It mirrors trends across Washington.
“The stats today from the Spokane Medical Examiner showed the fatalities involving fentanyl in Spokane County increased to 108 last year, up from 28 the year before; in 2019, it was 11,” he said before the speech. “We’re seeing data from across the state from medical examiners that show it continuing to increase into 2022.”
A University of Washington School of Medicine acting professor in psychiatry and behavioral health sciences, Banta-Green is executive sponsor of Washington state’s Opioid Overdose Response Plan and runs the websites stopoverdose.org and learnabouttreament.org.