Earlier in January, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office announced a case of a mistaken drug in Fresno. Three men who thought they were snorting cocaine turned out to have been using pure fentanyl, an opioid that’s 100 times as potent as morphine and many times stronger than heroin. Two of the men recovered, but one died.
Aside from the unusual circumstances, this is not an isolated incident – over the past 10 years, opioid overdoses have killed close to 600 people in Fresno County, and 14 of those deaths have been attributed to fentanyl. To learn more about opioid use in Fresno County, and how law enforcement is approaching it, we sat down with County Sheriff Margaret Mims. Listen to the interview for more about the Sheriff’s Office’s efforts to raise awareness of the issue and prevent overdoses, and how its priorities don’t always align with those in public health.
