Overdose fatalities surged in Whatcom County in 2023. How many involved fentanyl?
Whatcom County overdose deaths rose by about 43% last year, fueled by a cheap and easily available drug cocktail, coupled with growing misery among the area’s poorest and most vulnerable people.
Figures for December were still waiting final toxicology, but Dr. Greg Thompson told The Bellingham Herald that as of Monday, there were 130 overdose-related deaths in 2023, up from 91 deaths in 2022.
Numbers for 2023 might not be final for a couple of months, but there’s no question that overdose deaths are rising sharply, he said. Thompson is one of the two top doctors at the Whatcom County Department of Health and Community Services.
Almost all overdose deaths involved the powerful opioid fentanyl, and many were blamed on a combination of fentanyl and methamphetamine, Thompson said Tuesday.
“We have the epidemic of two very serious drugs on top of the epidemic of deaths of despair,” Thompson said.
Hospital ER visits for overdoses of all kinds rose from 700 in 2022 to 861 in 2023, according to county Health Department figures. About half of those visits were for opioids.
Alcoholism and suicide are rising along with overdoses and overdose deaths, Thompson said.
There were 55 suicides in 2022, up from 37 in 2021 and 26 in 2012, according to the Whatcom County medical examiner’s annual reports.
Drug overdoses have been one of two leading causes of accidental deaths in Whatcom County since 2000, according to the medical examiner’s annual reports and previous Herald reporting.
In 2022 about 30% of all accidental deaths were linked to drugs, according to the medical examiner’s most recent annual report. Drugs were the second-leading cause of accidental death after falls in 2022, amounting to 77 deaths out of 272. Opioids were present in 62 deaths.
Earlier this year, Bellingham and Whatcom County formed a Multi-Agency Coordination Group to manage the opioid epidemic as they would a natural disaster such as an earthquake.
Further, the county has hired a specialist to provide support and services in accordance with the new opioid settlement funding, local planning efforts and the statewide Opioid Response Plan, a Health Department official said.
Over the past year, Health Department officials gave away more than 5,300 two-dose kits containing Narcan, a drug that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, and the county’s EMS agency has given away about 500 kits, officials said.
“We have been distributing a lot of Narcan. We know there are lives being saved every day,” Thompson said.
Narcan, also known by its generic name, naloxone, is available for free to anyone and can be ordered online.
This story was originally published January 5, 2024 at 4:00 AM.
