The California Department of Justice will join a key law enforcement task force in San Diego that targets the smuggling and distribution of fentanyl, state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Wednesday.
Bonta said the Department of Justice will add expertise in sophisticated investigations and surveillance techniques to the multi-agency Fentanyl Abatement and Suppression Team, known as FAST.
Led by Homeland Security Investigations, the task force was created in September of last year.
“Fentanyl is a crisis, San Diego is a key location, and the collaboration will make the impact really strong,” Bonta said in an interview.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, and small amounts of it can kill, authorities say. While pharmaceutical fentanyl is used to treat pain, illicit fentanyl, in the form of powder and pills, sometimes is laced with other drugs — sometimes unbeknownst to users.
San Diego County has seen an increase in fatal fentanyl overdoses and is, according to authorities, the epicenter of fentanyl trafficking.
In its first year in operation, FAST led or supported about 70 law enforcement operations in the county, resulting in the arrests of 53 fentanyl smugglers, distributors and dealers, according to San Diego U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath.
“Collaboration with partners like AG Bonta is a critical force multiplier in our fight against fentanyl,” McGrath said in a statement.
Bonta announced the partnership after a roundtable discussion in San Diego about ongoing efforts to combat the fentanyl crisis. The event, hosted at the San Diego Central Library, included local, state and federal leaders in law enforcement and health care. The discussion was closed to the public.
During a news conference afterward, Bonta and other leaders spoke about some of the ongoing strategies. Bonta said he was impressed to see the region tackle the crisis from both law enforcement and public health angles.
“I believe it’s a model for what other counties can do,” he said.
The crisis has not let up, leaders said.
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said two-thirds of the 624 fatal overdoses in the city last year — 410 — involved fentanyl. Five years ago, the city saw 45 fentanyl deaths.
The mayor added that fentanyl was the leading cause of death among the city’s homeless population last year, claiming 181 lives.
Last November, the mayor issued an executive order that instructed San Diego police to ramp up enforcement of fentanyl sales. Arrests of fentanyl dealers since then are up 63 percent, Gloria said.
Earlier this year, police brought on three drug-sniffing dogs that are trained to detect fentanyl and rolled out mapping software that tracks drug overdoses.
Among other efforts, the city, in partnership with the county, has added 66 beds to shelters where drug treatment services are available.
“Today we shared strategies, lessons learned and potential solutions going forward,” Gloria said. “This is a problem that demands a unified response from all segments of our society — government, healthcare, law enforcement and the community.”
Some of the funds for ongoing efforts come from national settlements with the opioid painkiller industry. The California Department of Justice has helped secured more than $32 billion in settlement funds, including $2 million earmarked for the state, Bonta said.
Still, several leaders said more must be done to solve the crisis.
“This morning’s conversation really highlighted the need for more harm reduction, more public education, more tools for prosecutors and more support across the entire spectrum,” Gloria said.
Chris Howard, president and CEO of Sharp HealthCare, said that in the last two years, the health system’s emergency departments saw a nearly 90 percent increase in the number of patients who needed treatment because of fentanyl use.
Howard said more patients, especially among the region’s unsheltered population, could be discharged directly to residential treatment programs if more beds were available. He also said a free fentanyl test strip distribution program would give people the ability to test for the presence of fentanyl in a drug and reduce the number of inadvertent exposures to the opioid.
