Officials believe that the group had purchased a powder that they snorted together, apparently unaware that it contained fentanyl.
The national overdose rate for opiates had a huge upswing in 2019, according to published NIH and OHA data.
Another interesting point is that OD deaths equate to less than 2% of the number of people, measured over the same period, that would have had criminal records due to possession in Oregon (or 0.2% of the population).
The recent comparison between how Portugal was able to succeed, versus Oregon (and the US in general) wasn’t very surprising - except for the part about how the actual ticketing & law enforcement process was largely a failure. Portuguese authorities suggested that most of the people brought into the deterrence program weren’t addicts, but mostly vacationers who were partying. Conversely, they said that the biggest influence on their success was that they poured an incredible amount of money into the social services needed for addiction treatment and they had safe sites for use - both of which will be impossible in the US.
The stat that blew my mind is way down at the bottom:
“In July, KGW reporter Blair Best rode along with firefighters from Portland Fire’s Station 1 in downtown, who said that they were being run ragged by overdose calls — responding to more overdose calls than fires. In June alone, the agency said, firefighters from Station 1 responded to 300 overdose calls.”
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