Sheriff comments on rise in use of fentanyl

Cass County Sheriff Darby McLaren released on social media his concern with an increase in drug activity in that county, with people especially overdosing on Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid similar, but 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.

Closer to home, Adair County Sheriff Jeff Vandewater said prescription drug abuse was something he began to escalate in the early 2000s. Marijuana has increased in potency over the years after it became legal in some states, like Colorado.

Though he doesn’t remember very many heroin seizures locally, they have steadily increased in eastern Iowa. Vandewater said this may be due to stiffening monitoring of prescription pain killers.

“The timing is interesting as I just went and listened to Sheriff Mark Lamb, from Pinal County, Arizona speak at the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office last Monday,” Vandewater wrote to the newspaper in an email. “Pinal County has one county between it and the Mexican border. Sheriff Lamb gave the numbers which just his office has seen in recent years. In 2018, his office had no M 30 Fentanyl pills seizures; his deputies seized 700 tablets in 2019; 200,000 in 2020; and so far this year, his office has seized 1.1 million M 30 Fentanyl pills. I am unaware that Adair County has any confirmed Fentanyl overdoses. But, it is a matter of time.”

Vandewater explained that the danger of Fentanyl is that you can’t be sure what you’re taking when you put the pills in your mouth.

“Unless someone is prescribed a medication from a physician and the you obtain the prescription from a pharmacy, you are literally taking your life in your hands as yousimply do not know the exact content of the pill, tablet, or whatever you’re ingesting,” Vandewater said. “And the problem is, these counterfeit pills aren’t uniform in their content or make up. Twenty tablets may have a low fentanyl percentage and the next one may have a much higher percentage, and that can be what leads to an overdose.”

Vandewater said that of the county’s last four fatalities where someone has died at the hands of an impaired driver, which is considered a homicide by vehicle, the three drivers who were impaired were found to be under the influence of controlled substances, not alcohol.

There is a drug drop box located at the Adair County Sheriff’s Office where residents can turn in unused prescription drugs, no questions asked.The drug drop box is available 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Zion Recovery Services offers impatient and outpatient resources to the area and there aremultiple other options in or around Des Moines or across Iowa, Vandewater said.

Also, in the last few years, the Iowa Legislature passed a law that provides legal protection, under most conditions, for a caller to report an overdose to 911. The goal, Vandewater said, is to get help immediately, because once someone stops breathing, four minutes without oxygen can lead to death or permanent brain injury.

“In theory, my advice is simple. Don’t take anything that is not prescribed to you from a physician and then obtained from a licensed pharmacy,” Vandewater said. “Get rid of your unused prescription drugs via the drug drop boxes available at the Adair County Sheriff’s Office, Nu Cara Pharmacy in Greenfield, Fontanelle Drug in Fontanelle or Wright Pharmacy in Stuart.”