Across the country, more states are beginning to legalize drug testing strips that can detect the presence of the potent opioid Fentanyl to avoid deadly overdoses.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and is typically used to manage severe pain specifically after a surgery. While it’s legally prescribed, it’s also being sold and distributed on the black market.
Sonoran Prevention Works in Arizona, helps families affected by drugs and sees thousands of people each year. “A deadly dose of Fentanyl is not very much at all, it’s a couple of granules…and because it’s showing up in drugs and people don’t know it, because it’s not regulated in any capacity, and because it’s so strong and potent it is accidentally being mixed into drugs, or it’s really easy to accidentally put too much in a drug,” said Haley Coles, Executive Director of the organization.
“It’s definitely a stepping stone,” said Coles. “To have people have access to the strips is really important because then they have the option of testing what’s in their drugs, but we don’t think that this is going to solve the whole problem, because still not everybody is going to have access to them.”
Natalie Nelson volunteers at the organization, she also uses the test strips herself.
SEIZURES OF DEADLY FENTANYL BY CBP IN FY2021 ALREADY TOP ALL OF FY2020
“I actually would not be here speaking with you today if it weren’t for the Fentanyl testing strips because Xanax is a huge drug in Arizona that Fentanyl is in, and it’s very sad, and a lot of the times that I would buy Xanax, there would be Fentanyl in it,” said Nelson.
Out of all the times she has tested her anxiety medications with the strips, ten times they’ve come back as positive for Fentanyl.
“These people who are just human beings, just like everybody else, are demonized in the community and it just always made me so sad to see that. The shame and guilt that these people hold just because they use a substance, it’s very sad to see and I wanted to become an advocate for those people. I want to essentially become sort of like a voice, and be part of this safe haven that we have here, for people that use drugs,” said Nelson.
Along with the test strips, Sonoran Prevention Works also helped pass a bill to legalize clean needle exchange programs. Allowing people to dispose of dirty needles for free.
“In Arizona, there’s no standard free place for people to dispose of their syringes. when people call into the state, they’re told to put them in the trash,” said Coles.
“The more syringe service programs we have, the more places, we will have for people to dispose of those syringes. What’s important about the law to is it protects people who are traveling with their used syringes from being arrested with those used syringes if they can prove that they are a member of a program, and that is how we’re able to incentivize people to come back to bring their syringes to us.”