In the old days, Lucas County Sheriff John Tharp says, law enforcement could confiscate suspected drugs on the street and perform a quick chemical test by hand to confirm whether they were illegal substances. These days, that could get a first responder killed.
Fentanyl, the synthetic opioid about 50 times more potent than heroin, is a deadly risk on Ohio’s streets.
That makes a bill backed by Ohio’s senators, Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Sherrod Brown, to get better, safer handheld drug-screening technology to local police vital.
The Providing Officers with Electronic Resources (POWER) Act would help local law enforcement get testing kits that can identify thousands of drug compounds, even within packages. The bill would provide $20 million in grants for the project.
Experts believe fentanyl is responsible for most of the accidental overdoses Ohio cities have seen in the last year or two. And because it is so potent, police, firefighters, and other first responders are in jeopardy if they come into contact with even a minute trace of the drug.
Locally, a Toledo police officer had to be administered the opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone last August after coming in contact with what was later identified in court documents as fentanyl.
Reforms in opioid-prescription practices, along with education and drug-prevention programs, and many other efforts have helped reduce the overdose deaths attributed to heroin in the last year or two.
The number of opioid-related deaths remain high, particularly in Ohio. Unintentional fatal overdoses here have increased for eight straight years, with 4,854 deaths in 2017 — a majority of which involved opioid use. Ohio Department of Health figures for 2018 are not yet official.
The deadly synthetic fentanyl is largely imported from China, either through the U.S. Postal Service or via Mexico. Once it arrives in communities, fentanyl and fentanyl-laced heroin is often to blame for spikes in overdose cases.
Reducing the risk these synthetic opioids pose to first responders accidentally exposed to them must be a top priority. Congress should move quickly to pass the POWER Act and President Trump should move just as quickly to sign it.
First Published April 3, 2019, 4:00 a.m.
