FARMINGTON – Since the start of 2021, law enforcement in San Juan County, New Mexico, has seen an increase in fentanyl cases, a situation growing so dire the local hospital tracks fentanyl cases separately from other narcotics.
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid intended to be prescribed for patients with chronic severe pain or cancer. The substance is “similar to morphine but about 100 times more potent.”
For help
For local mental health and substance abuse help, call the San Juan County Mental Health Resource Center at (505) 636-7110.
Farmington Police Department spokeswoman Nicole Brown said the department has so far identified two forms of fentanyl, powder and pill, however the substance can be laced in other drugs.
“Manufacturers and distributors are lacing fentanyl with other substances, commonly heroin, to prolong and increase the effects of the opioid,” Brown said.
The powder form of fentanyl is similar to a salt-like substance, while the pill form is commonly seen in a round blue pill with “M-30” stamped on it to disguise the pill as oxycodone.
“These pills are pressed by distributors and are typically mixed with oxycodone or acetaminophen, making it difficult to determine the amount of fentanyl in each pill until it is sent to the New Mexico State Laboratory for testing,” Brown said.
The drug can be absorbed through the skin, especially when it is in powder form. For that reason, officers in the region have been provided with training and proper personal protective equipment to prevent accidental exposures when handling or testing suspected fentanyl.
Brown said alcohol-based sanitizers can open the skin’s pores making it more likely for a change of exposure. That is why latex gloves are recommended and often required when handling the drug.
Brown said there had not been any accidental exposures to Farmington police officers that she knew of.
San Juan Regional Medical Center uses a coding system to label patient charts after a patient has been released from the hospital. Up until this year, the hospital did not have a specific code for fentanyl overdoses; rather, they were lumped in with other overdose cases. Because the hospital recently began the coding system, not much data exists to know if there has been an increase in cases.
Dr. Robert Underwood, chief medical officer at SJRMC, said since the start of this calendar year, there have been six overdose cases they could find, either by hand search or reported using the fentanyl color code.
“I can’t go back to 2020 to look to see if there were a lot of fentanyl overdoses because we didn’t have that code at the time,” Underwood said. “Without reviewing every narcotics overdose case over the last couple years, I really don’t know the trend data behind that.”
Underwood said the hospital hadn’t differentiated between narcotics and fentanyl previously because the treatment is the same – Narcan.
“Differentiating between one and the other, once (the patient) arrives, the name of the narcotic (they used) is not really that pertinent to what we are trying to do to treat the patient,” Underwood said.
The Farmington Police Department said local investigators have seen a major increase in the sale and use of fentanyl since the beginning of 2021 in the area.
“Fentanyl abuse has gotten much worse in San Juan County,” Brown said. “Most of the overdoses that are occurring are due to users consuming the drug orally, sometimes not feeling the effects immediately, and ingesting more to get the ‘high.’”
While Underwood couldn’t say for sure that fentanyl use has increased during the pandemic, he did say there has been an increase in behavioral health issues because of isolation and other issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, which could lead to an increase in self-medicating with controlled substances.
“We have definitely seen an increase in behavioral health issues, and a part of that is if you’re not getting care somewhere else, you may try to appease your mental health issues otherwise,” Underwood said.
mmitchell@durangoherald.com
