No cases of fentanyl in Weston County … yet

As the fentanyl problem grows across the country and state, Weston County has managed to avoid seeing issues with the opioid, according to Sheriff Bryan Colvard.
“Knock on wood, I don’t want to say it out loud.  … To my knowledge, we have not had any issues with fentanyl,” Colvard said. “It is coming, though. I think it is just a matter of time.” 
He noted that a local issue suspected to involve the deadly drug turned out to be something different.
In anticipation of issues with fentanyl — the drug responsible for a “dramatic increase in overdose fatalities, ranging from 2,666 in 2011 to 31,335 in 2018, according to a Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration drug fact sheet — Weston County School District No. 1 approved a policy on Oct. 12 addressing the use of NARCAN at the school. 
NARCAN “is a potentially life-saving medication designed to help reverse the effects of an opioid overdose in minutes,” according to narcan.com.
Because of this increased burden and concern across the state, and in anticipation that Weston County will eventually see fentanyl and its effects in our community, School Superintendent Brad LaCroix recommended that the district approve a NARCAN policy. He noted that school nurse Allison Farella is working on the issue with the state. 
NARCAN is used to block the effects of opioids and restore normal breathing in a person whose breathing has slowed or stopped due to a drug overdose, according to the Wyoming Department of Health. 
Newcastle High School Principal Bryce Hoffman and Newcastle Middle School Principal Tyler Bartlett both reported to the News Letter Journal that neither school has seen issues related to fentanyl. 
“The addition of NARCAN was not related to our school but was based on information our nursing staff received from the state nursing association,” Hoffman said in an email. “We felt as a team that it would be better to be prepared in advance of an incident and have it on hand.” 
Bartlett added in the email thread that he thinks the school administrator’s job “a lot of the time is to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.” 
“Our nursing staff brought this (the NARCAN policy) forth as we see opioid issues continue to spread across the country, and it’s something we’d rather try to prepare for as best as possible while also hoping to never have to actually put to use,” Bartlett said. 

What is fentanyl?

According to the DEA, fentanyl is a “synthetic opioid that is 50-100 times stronger than morphine. Pharmaceutical fentanyl was developed for pain management treatment of cancer patients, applied in a patch on the skin.”
Because of its powerful nature, the agency says, the drug is also diverted for abuse. More than 932,000 people have died from fentanyl overdose since 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 91,799 of those in 2020. 
In 2021, Wyoming reported 106 deaths due to fentanyl overdose, up from 99 the previous year, according to the Wyoming Department of Health. 
Dr. Alexia Harrist, state health officer and state epidemiologist, said in an Oct. 13 press release that the increase in fentanyl deaths is partially due to an increase in all synthetic opioid-involved overdose deaths, noting that between 2018 and 2021 the number of synthetic opioid-involved fatal overdoses quadrupled while deaths connected to other opiods stayed relatively stable. 
Because of the increase in deaths related to the drug, the health department, in conjunction with Gov. Mark Gordon, has begun sharing important information about fentanyl and other similar drugs, according to the release. 
“Because fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, it can also be more addictive and clearly more dangerous,” Harrist said in the release.
Stefan Johnansson, the Wyoming Department of Health director, added in the same release that the “drug is nothing short of frightening when used illegally.”
“What increases the level of danger is that people using drugs can be unaware that a synthetic opioid has been added to a drug they have bought or been given to use. They don’t know the fentanyl is there, and the results are sometimes tragic,” he said in the release.