As fentanyl seizures continue to rise, Brown County leaders plan to mail anti-fentanyl message to all county residents
Doug SchneiderGREEN BAY - The 1,071 grams of fentanyl the Brown County Drug Task Force seized in 2021 was a record, exceeding the total it had taken off the streets since the opioid first appeared in the county.
The fentanyl seized in 2022 approached 10,000 grams — exceeding the 2021 number by a factor of nine.
Those sobering numbers come as Brown County leaders on Thursday talked about progress they're making in the battle to control the number of people who die from using the drug. The synthetic opioid, which the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention says is 50 times stronger than heroin and up to 100 times stronger than morphine, first appeared in the county in 2016, said Matt Ronk, who leads the 18 investigators who work with the Brown County Drug Task Force.
"One of my daughters would probably tell you, 'My dad has told me about this drug 85,000 times,'" Ronk said. Other parents might say "my youngest is way too young," he said. "But peer pressure (even from younger kids) is strong. And how well do you know your kids' friends?"
Children might have heard the "drugs are dangerous" message from parents 85,000 times, Ronk said, but that message might get lost on occasions when a peer offers them a pill. It can be particularly dangerous when the person offering the illicit item — fentanyl is typically produced by a cartel and often carried over the Mexican-U.S. border, authorities say — doesn't know what's in the pill, isn't asked or doesn't say.
Brown County recently has rented billboards on both sides of Green Bay encouraging parents to speak with their children, and to warn that a single pill a friend or classmate encourages them to take can be deadly. Ronk says 6 of 10 pills containing fentanyl in Brown County can be life-ending; a year ago, he said, the number was 4 in 10.
On Thursday, county officials announced that its next steps include informing the public through a mass mailing to all county addresses in February, said Jeff Flynt, speaking for the county. The mailing will include an anti-fentanyl message in English, Spanish, Hmong and Somali. The county also plans to ask local school districts to encourage students and their parents to discuss the dangers of fentanyl.
Executive Troy Streckenbach said the fight against fentanyl would be one of Brown County's priorities this year.
Claire Paprocki, speaking for the county health department, said the department's initial task is to "educate parents on having conversations with the kids about fentanyl and why it’s so dangerous."
Meanwhile, it's easy to see fentanyl's growing impact by looking at the changes in the overdose deaths reported by the county Medical Examiner's office.
"There appears to be more fentanyl present in the community than ever before" Paprocki said. "The increase in deaths correlates with the increase in fentanyl presence and use in our community, often because other drugs are laced with it."
Statistics from the medical examiner's office show:
- In 2017, 15 of 37, or about 40%, of drug-overdose deaths in the county involved fentanyl. In a number of cases, the post-mortem examination indicated the presence of other drugs.
- The percentage of deaths involving fentanyl shrunk to 28%, seven of 25, of overdose deaths in 2018.
- Since then, the percentage of fatal drug ODs involving fentanyl has grown steadily: 17 of 41 deaths, or 41.4%, in 2019 involved fentanyl. In 2020, it was 26 of 53 deaths — nearly 50%.
- A year later, 58%, 37 of 64, fatal overdoses involved fentanyl.
- In 2022 numbers for the year are not complete, but the county ME's office has completed investigations into 50 OD deaths. Of those, 41 involved a person who died with fentanyl in his or her bloodstream.
- USA TODAY reported that fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin, and only a tiny amount — enough to rest on a pencil tip — can be fatal. Last year, more than 100,000 people died of drug overdoses; two-thirds involved fentanyl.
Email Doug Schneider at DSchneid@gannett.com, call him at (920) 265-2070 and follow him on Twitter @PGDougSchneider.