-My child did not deserve this.
[ Birds squawk ]
She was destined to do good things with her life.
-Fentanyl. [ Lighter clicks ]
It’s a synthetic opioid for pain management
that’s up to 50 times more potent than heroin.
And Washington state
is at the epicenter of a fentanyl crisis.
[ Sirens wailing ]
-We have people who are overdosing
five times in a month.
-Fatal overdoses exploded
from 109 to 714 in the last 3 years.
And fentanyl is on track to kill a thousand people
in King County this year.
-This is the worst drug crisis I’ve ever seen in my life.
-It’s rough. It’s just a major opioid use going on out here.
-I still use, yeah. I self-medicate.
-Perhaps, most troubling,
these fake prescription pills sold on the street
contain an unregulated amount of fentanyl
and look identical to the ones prescribed by doctors,
making it a real challenge to tell the difference
before it’s too late.
-We are seeing, what I would describe
as a compassion fatigue.
-Finding the right political and pragmatic balance
isn’t easy, but it’s crucial we find a solution fast.
-Nobody wants to live in addiction.
-What we are doing now is insufficient.
-It’s a drug so deadly you could fit a fatal dose of it
on the point of a pencil.
That’s the frightening reality
behind the global crisis of fentanyl.
150 people across the US die every day from overdoses
related to synthetic opioids, like, fentanyl.
And those numbers are rising, especially in Washington state.
Why is this happening, and what can be done to stop it?
♪♪
-This is Brillion's room. I keep the door locked now.
-Laura Lynch calls this a sacred space.
She hasn’t moved anything in this bedroom
for more than 2 years.
-It’s comforting, but at the same time,
just really heart-wrenching to be in here.
-It’s the last place she was able to see
her daughter, Brillion,
who died of a fentanyl overdose on April 3rd, 2021,
just 6 days after her 18th birthday.
-She’s just always, like, right there in my mind.
She’s the first thing I think of when I wake up,
and the last thing I think about when I go to sleep.
♪♪
-Lynch says her daughter was a creative,
happy-go-lucky young girl.
But Lynch says Brillion was bullied
in middle school and high school
and dealt with anxiety and depression.
-There were a lot of different issues.
-Lynch says her daughter experimented with marijuana
but didn’t run into fentanyl until age 16,
when she began a part-time job at a fast food restaurant.
-It was there that she met this boy,
who I found out later, um, sold drugs
and, you know, exposed her to them.
And that’s really sort of where it started.
-When Brillion's behavior became more risky,
as her mom puts it,
Lynch put her into multiple rehab programs
and treatment centers.
She thought Brillion was sober enough
and trustworthy enough to go on a trip with friends
to the Kitsap Peninsula for her 18th birthday.
-I had put lots of rules on her,
and right out of the gate, she violated the rules,
and I didn’t do anything,
because I wanted her to be happy.
I could have told her to turn around and come back.
You know, now, I wish I did.
-Brillion contacted her dealer on Instagram,
took 3/4 of a fentanyl pill, and was passed out
in a gas station parking lot in a running car
when two passersby saw her and called 911.
-They did revive her at the scene
with two doses of Narcan.
-But officers did not take the fentanyl pills
away from Brillion
and didn’t notify her mom, whose car she was driving.
Lynch says, her daughter continued to use the pills
when she came home.
Unbeknownst to you, she was taking them?
-You know, I think, I knew something.
I knew something was off,
but I don’t think I wouldn’t -- I didn’t want to know.
I didn’t want to recognize it.
-Lynch galvanized her guilt and grief into action
and fought for justice for her daughter.
In a bittersweet court victory,
Brillion's dealer received a 20-month jail sentence.
And now, Lynch has made it her life’s mission
to warn others at schools and community centers
about the dangers of fentanyl, a drug that can kill
with a dose no bigger than a few grains of salt.
-You can’t put your head in the sand. You just can’t.
And you need to start talking early.
I don’t think the end is in sight.
-I’ve been with the DEA over 25 years,
and this is the worst drug crisis
I’ve ever seen in my life.
-David Reames is Special Agent in Charge
of the Seattle Field Division
of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The DEA tracks fentanyl as it begins its journey
in the form of what are called, precursor chemicals,
raw materials manufactured primarily,
the DEA says, out of unregulated businesses in China.
-The chemicals are made in China,
shipped to Mexico,
where the chemicals are synthesized into fentanyl,
and from Mexico, shipped to the United States.
That’s largely where it comes from.
-In its legal pharmaceutical form,
fentanyl is a powerful pain reliever
approved by the Food and Drug Administration,
100 times more potent than morphine
and 50 times more powerful than heroin.
But that’s what you’d get with a prescription at a pharmacy,
not what the DEA sees in illicit drug labs.
-He was mixing the fentanyl in the heroin with a wooden spoon.
So, this is how he was adding the fentanyl.
If people saw how this stuff is made, they would --
they wouldn’t do it, it’s -- it’s just a dirty business.
-Without any quality control,
there’s no telling what you’re getting on the street.
-They can’t tell the difference between oxycodone
and an M30 fentanyl pill.
-But the DEA can tell
its agents are recovering more drugs than ever.
The Seattle Field Office seized more than twice as much fentanyl
in 2022 in western Washington, as it did in 2021,
an alarming trend mirrored by current national statistics.
-DEA wide, we seized over 39 million pills,
just so far in 2023.
-The pills come in a rainbow of colors to look like candy,
and DEA lab analysis shows the drugs are getting deadlier.
Six out of ten pills now contain 2.4mg of fentanyl.
The problem? Just 2mg can kill the average person.
-The only explanation for that can be that the cartels
are trying to make the substance more addictive.
They’re trying to create more customers, and in the process,
they’re bringing more death to Americans.
-The DEA is fighting fentanyl on many fronts,
bringing cases against Chinese chemical companies,
taking on Mexican drug cartels,
dealing with high-level drug distributors, and more.
-We’re trying, at every level,
to get our hands around this problem.
-It’s a threat to each and every child.
It is addiction.
-And the DEA is trying to reach young people
through an outreach campaign in schools and communities
called Operation Engage.
-Talking to your kids about drugs isn’t easy,
but we can help. -The average fentanyl pill
has more than a lethal dose in it,
so, if you take one,
you have a better than average chance of it killing you.
We’re trying to pass that message to the world
to try to slow down drug poisonings.
-But how do you get that message out
to the people who need to hear it the most?
-I see a lot of homelessness. I see a lot of drug use.
I see babies down here being pushed through the alleys
with their parents using.
Um, you see a lot. You see a lot.
-Derwayne Trahan is a supervisor for We Deliver Care...
-Wake your game up, D. -...a community organization
that connects with people in the area downtown
where Seattle’s drug crisis has been the most visible
for the past half century,
from Stewart to University,
between 2nd and 4th avenues,
just a block away from Pike Place Market.
-Oh, for him. -The WDC crew
of Community Safety Ambassadors
offers food, water, or cigarettes
when they encounter people in need.
-Are you okay, though, you’re not -- you’re not --
you’re not overdosing or nothing, are you?
-And in dozens of cases, since November of 2022,
WDC has administered the drug naloxone or Narcan,
to quickly reverse the potential deadly effects
of a fentanyl overdose.
-We’ve saved over 70 lives down here.
People come grab us when somebody’s overdosing,
because they’re used to seeing us.
We’re down here 16 hours a day, 7 days a week.
-These patrols are part of what the city calls,
the Third Avenue Project,
an initiative to tackle downtown drugs,
crime, and poverty, and quell street disorder here
with police and non-police alternatives.
-Won't he do it?
-WDC’s goal is to connect people
to housing and services away from the street.
And while this group has been able to get 24 people
into homes in 2023,
they’re dealing with some that need far more help.
-Some, like Xavier, whom we met while out with the WDC team,
have homes outside the downtown core,
but return here as they continue to struggle with addiction.
-Fentanyl and meth.
I’ve watched people overdose taking one hit.
It’s just a vicious cycle.
-We also met this woman, who goes by the name, Bloo.
She also buys her blue pills here,
but says the drug problems you see on Seattle’s streets,
where people are buying illicit prescription pills
for a dollar or less a piece,
are just one part of the puzzle.
-People are sick out here, you know, it’s not just drugs.
I mean, it’s, you know, a long time of mental,
you know, abuse and physical abuse.
-She says, that combination of traumas
has pushed many people addicted to opioids
into a state of perpetual fear,
knowing the road to recovery will be difficult
with severe withdrawal symptoms once they stop using.
-People are scared, you know, to volunteer themselves
into programs and stuff like that,
because they don’t know if they’re going to
make it back out.
The people have lost the trust
and the will to -- to even,
you know, communicate or accept any help.
-You got people who want treatment,
and you got people who don’t want treatment.
This epidemic is hard to kick.
You got to have this high every 20 minutes.
You got to have it every 15 to 20 minutes.
It’s hard to kick.
-It’s a powerful drug that demands a powerful response
and some powerful faith in the resource-intensive,
one person at a time approach of the Third Avenue Project.
-Every person we get into rehab...
there’s hope.
-And if you thought fentanyl
was simply a downtown Seattle problem,
think again.
-Most are not people that you would expect.
-Rebecca Rice is program manager
of Eastside Fire and Rescue’s
Mobile Integrated Health, or MIH program,
which sends social workers with firefighters
on home visits across eastern King County
with a special focus
on preventing opioid overdose deaths.
-If we think they might be using opioids,
we leave them a Narcan leave-behind kit.
-Eastside Fire and Rescue
distributed 100 free naloxone kits
from King County in the first year
of the Naloxone Leave Behind Program in 2022,
and now have 200 from the state Department of Health
to hand out in 2023.
What Rice sees as a starting point
to help people dealing with a substance use disorder.
-Being able to widely distribute Narcan
to the community
is really about enabling anyone who's using,
and that can include, you know, teenagers or adults
in very well-off communities to stay alive.
-But Rice acknowledges
public response to the program is mixed,
especially, with the stigma surrounding drug use disorders.
-I think there can be a perception
that giving out Narcan
is enabling people to continue using drugs,
and I hear rumors about people who purposefully overdose,
because they know they can be Narcan'd.
And I don’t know that that is true.
-The CDC says Washington had the highest increase
in drug overdose deaths in the nation, last year,
and with the majority of those deaths
happening in King County and western Washington.
Rice says a new approach to saving lives
is desperately needed.
-We have to think of addiction as more of a mental health issue
than a physical issue that we can just fix
with a stay in the hospital.
So, it’s really challenging.
-The challenging task of helping people suffering from addiction
while also ensuring
better accountability and public safety,
came to a head on the last day
of the 2023 state legislative session,
when lawmakers could not agree on a new drug law
ahead of a July 1st deadline.
-There is a severe risk
if we do not pass this legislation,
that there will be a patchwork of inconsistent ordinances
around the state.
And not only that, and more important than that,
it will not be treatment-focused.
-We were working on compromise.
This is not it.
And in reality,
I think, this is more dangerous than doing nothing.
-This battle began in 2021,
when the state Supreme Court ruled
that Washington’s felony drug possession law
was unconstitutional
in a landmark case, known as the Blake decision.
The legislature scrambled to come up with a temporary fix,
downgrading drug possession to a simple misdemeanor,
and requiring that a person be referred
to treatment services twice,
before being charged with a crime.
But enforcement was challenging,
and drug overdoses and deaths continued to spike.
-Is this bill perfect?
Absolutely not.
There is no perfect in this thorny policy issue.
-On May 16th, 2023,
with the temporary drug law set to expire in just 6 weeks,
the governor called lawmakers back
for a one-day special session, and a compromise was struck.
-We have a statewide solution in front of us,
one that is workable.
-The new law makes knowing possession of hard drugs,
like fentanyl and other opioids,
or public use of them, a gross misdemeanor.
Penalties include a fine up to $5,000,
and a jail sentence of up to 364 days,
depending on past drug offenses.
Unlike the 2021 Blake fix, prosecutors are encouraged,
but not required, to divert defendants
into drug treatment programs.
Lawmakers say the goal is to encourage drug users
to choose to get help first
with criminal sanctions as a last resort.
-Some folks need a shove to get into treatment.
And the reason is, is because these drugs
have stolen the free will of these individuals.
-I believe it’s unfortunate
that this routine function of adopting our state law
is being politicized this year.
-But after the state’s decision, the struggle over drug policy
continued in Seattle,
where the City Council narrowly rejected legislation
by a 5-4 vote
that would have allowed the City Attorney
to prosecute the possession and use of drugs in public,
with the majority voicing concerns
about a lack of diversion measures
written into the city law.
-As we claw out of the pandemic,
I just ask that the council listen to what communities want.
-Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell
convened a fentanyl systems task force
to create an ordinance that he says,
addresses the public safety impacts
of the opioid crisis
with a diversion and treatment approach.
-The council bill passes, as amended.
-The City Council approved the mayor’s proposal
in September with a 6-3 vote.
-We will lead with our values,
and so, what you’re going to see, is number one,
is we will always want some kind of treatment readily available.
-The mayor is calling for $44 million
to go towards diversion and treatment.
He says the new drug law
establishes a threat of harm standard
to help police determine when arrests are authorized.
-We will have the right to make arrests,
because, quite frankly, even if you are addicted to fentanyl,
you don’t have a right to interfere with,
simply a person that’s forced to catch a bus right here
to get home to their family.
-Mayor Harrell says, growing up as a biracial kid in the 1960s,
the impact of the war on drugs on his friends, family,
and all communities of color is very personal to him.
-People have to understand that we’re not trying
to recreate a war on drugs.
In fact, it’s the exact opposite.
We’re trying to have a war for health.
-And with a nine-member City Council
that will have plenty of new faces next year,
he’s looking for political allies
ready to go to work with him
on a challenging and nuanced approach
to drug possession and public drug use.
-And I need elected leaders,
particularly in the city of Seattle,
to understand that they have to help me change the narrative
to combine health and safety in the same breath.
-We are now chasing it.
-But Malika Lamont is wary of any approach
that could involve jail time
for people with substance use disorders.
-Continuing to incarcerate people
for a behavioral health issue is not the right response.
We know what criminalization does to people.
It deepens stigma. It further marginalizes folks.
It makes it harder for people
to get into the services that they need.
-Lamont is the program director of VOCAL-WA,
and director of the technical support team
for Washington State
Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, or LEAD.
She’s been helping defendants deal with their addiction issues
and avoid jail time for the past 20 years.
-I’ve worked really hard to try and make things better
in all the communities that I have worked in across the state.
-She believes in a strategy of harm reduction,
meeting people who use drugs where they are,
and offering a range of supports,
including broader access to naloxone.
And while she’s concerned the fentanyl crisis is spiking,
she strongly opposes the state’s new drug laws.
-When you run a background check on somebody,
when they’re trying to get a job or trying to get into housing,
people don’t make a distinction between felony and misdemeanor,
quite frankly, they just see criminal.
So, when we’re criminalizing peoples' health conditions,
it makes it harder for them
to get to a different place in their life.
-And King County figures show
the most marginalized are the ones suffering the most.
Black people now die of overdoses
more than twice as often as white people,
indigenous people, more than eight times as often.
-We are seeing, what I would describe
as a compassion fatigue,
where people are not feeling compassionate
towards those that are marginalized
or that are experiencing overdose
or substance use disorder.
It’s legitimate that people are feeling fatigued.
However, we must be resilient and choose to be responsive
to the needs that our communities are experiencing
and dig deep.
-What we are doing now is insufficient.
It doesn’t mean that it’s not good.
It is just yet to the scale of the crisis.
-Dr. Richard Waters works in family medicine
and addiction medicine, and served for over 7 years
in the housing and homeless care programs
of Neighborcare Health in Seattle.
-Overdose rates have skyrocketed,
just because fentanyl
is a very different opioid than heroin.
-Now, with the Downtown Emergency Service Center,
he treats patients
facing serious addiction issues every day,
and believes the most effective treatments
for those using fentanyl
is by using other opioid medications,
like, buprenorphine and methadone.
-The #1 treatment strategy
that, you know, every policy should revolve around
is how do you expand access to medication treatments?
That is -- That is the key driver of positive outcomes.
-Waters is hopeful public policy
is going, in what he sees, as the right direction,
especially, with King County’s plans to build walk-in clinics
for people dealing with behavioral health problems.
And with federal legislation, under consideration,
that could make it easier for doctors to prescribe methadone.
-So, I think, King County and Washington
are definitely ahead of the curve.
-But Waters says more options
to deal with opioid addiction are needed,
possibly treatments used outside the US,
like, slow-release morphine and emerging psychedelic therapies.
-We have some potential tools
that we’re leaving on the table that we are not using.
-Waters adds that coercing someone
with an opioid use disorder into treatment,
with the threat of jail time,
for example, has not proven to be successful.
And he’s challenging those who might ask,
"What should we do with someone with an opioid addiction
who refuses to seek help?"
-I think, we could have a much greater impact
by changing the question to say,
"How do we change our treatment system,
so that it attracts and engages
and retains a greater percentage of people
with opioid use disorder?"
-This is a very difficult thing for a mom,
a pregnant woman who’s substance using
to walk in and say, "I need help."
-In 2015, Jennifer Justice,
then a successful business owner and mother of two,
was addicted to opioids, meth, and heroin.
-I got pregnant, and I continued to use, because,
to be honest, I just didn’t even know there was a way to stop.
-The hospital was legally obligated to report the birth,
because the baby had been exposed to drugs
while in the womb.
Jennifer never got to hold her son.
-Probably the hardest 5 days of my life
was having my son removed.
-Unable to stop her addiction, she lost custody of her son,
and her tenuous grasp on her mental health went with him.
-It became a downward spiral where I lost my home.
I lost my job, my business, my children
in a matter of 5 months.
-Jennifer was homeless for 8 years.
She says, she felt ashamed and hopeless
with no coping skills and a new addiction to fentanyl.
-Oh, I hated the smell and everything,
but I didn’t have a choice.
It was what was out there.
And so, if I didn’t want to be really sick
and not functioning, I had to use them.
-Then, in 2020, she became pregnant again.
But this time she was determined to try anything,
including detox.
-I’m not losing another kid, knowing that just in my heart,
I-I could not survive another child being taken.
-Luckily for Jennifer, she met Gina,
an advocate with similar lived experience,
through FIRST Clinic,
which provides legal help to keep moms with addiction
together with their children.
-And that was the beginning of real change for me.
-She says, with that support,
she was able to keep her baby Mason,
get housed, and even go back to college.
Now, she is dedicating her life
to helping other moms with addiction fight the stigma
as a parent ally at FIRST Clinic.
What do you want to say to the medical profession?
-That we can get better, that we matter.
We just need the right support.
We just need one person to believe in us.
-Jennifer, now finally,
reconnected with her other children
may be that statistic you never hear about,
a former opioid and fentanyl user.
She’s on a path to recovery
that she says, remains as challenging as ever.
-And I have to wake up every day with --
make the conscious decision to remain clean and sober.
It isn’t easy, but it is possible.
And it becomes so much more possible
with the right supports and services.
-What are the right supports and services?
There’s a growing acceptance that tailoring that response
based on each individual’s needs is most effective,
a daunting prospect as public policy and public health race
to stay ahead of the looming fentanyl crisis
and keep Americans alive.
-And if we want to create meaningful response,
we need to stabilize people.
-They have to want to make a change.
And sometimes, it’s hard.
You have to do a lot of mental health work
to truly be okay without the drugs.
-Striking a balance between compassion
and accountability can be challenging.
-It’s important for us to recognize
that many of these problems were decades in the making.
But the issue does become, can we do more?
How do we do more?
And we’re having those conversations right now.
-But with daily headlines
about fentanyl fatalities and overdoses,
the warning is simple.
-The only safe medicines to take
are ones prescribed by your doctor
and fulfilled at a pharmacy.
So, please, don’t use anything,
because it could be the last thing you ever do.
-It’s a searing, deep pain that [Sniffles] never goes away.
-And for Brillion's mom, Laura, the message is urgent.
-The fentanyl crisis could wipe out
an entire generation of people.
My daughter is gone, and she’s never coming back.
♪♪