By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The drug dynamic is shifting across Kansas and Barton County. In the first half of 2021, the state saw 338 drug overdoses, a 54-percent increase from the first half of 2020. Almost half of those overdoses were fentanyl-related. The trafficking and use of fentanyl are far different from the homemade meth labs that used to blight Barton County.
"At one point, we were busting a lab a week," said Barton County Sheriff Brian Bellendir. "At one point, we had our own hazardous material recovery guys, and everybody was trained in dealing with that stuff, but we haven't seen a lab here for years. The reason is it's much cheaper and safer to just import it."
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. Originally developed as a pharmaceutical to manage pain in cancer patients, fentanyl is now added to other drugs to increase potency, or even disguised as other drugs because it is more addictive.
"We had actually had a couple of cases of that where they think they're buying meth, and it's been laced with fentanyl because fentanyl is much cheaper," Bellendir said. "It has the opposite effect. You've got a depressant and a stimulant together. It's kind of like getting in your car and standing on the brakes and pushing the gas pedal to the floor."
Like other depressants, fentanyl can cause relaxation, euphoria, and sedation. Unlike many other street drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine, the margin of error in an overdose is much lower.
"With fentanyl, it's so narrow," said Bellendir. "You get outside of that band, it's lethal. We've had a couple fentanyl deaths here over the years. The last few years we've had quite a few overdoses. We do carry Narcan in our cars just for that reason. A lot of times, if you're in a rural area, you're going to beat the ambulance to where you're going. If you're dealing with an overdose or suspected overdose, that might be the only chance this person's got. It basically shuts down your respiratory system. You just go to sleep."
Nationally, drug overdose deaths have climbed virtually every year since 1999, making a big jump from nearly 71,000 cases in 2019 to just shy of 92,000 cases in 2020. Fentanyl-related overdose deaths have doubled from approximately 30,000 in 2017 to 60,000 in 2020.