California has allocated more than $1 billion in recent years to combat its opioid crisis. Much of the money has been used to distribute fentanyl test strips and the overdose reversal drug naloxone, as well as deliver medical care to people who are homeless. The state has an opioid awareness campaign tailored to youths and recently called on the National Guard to help detect drug traffickers.
Yet the problem keeps getting worse.
Driven largely by the prevalence of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 100 times stronger than morphine, drug overdoses in California now kill more than twice as many people as car accidents, more than four times as many as homicides, and more than either diabetes or lung cancer, according to California Health Policy Strategies, a Sacramento consulting group. And the state’s overdose surveillance dashboard indicates most opioid overdose deaths involve fentanyl.
