On May 17, 2023, seven inmates at the Snohomish County Jail in Washington state were rushed to the hospital after exhibiting symptoms consistent with an overdose of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. While all inmates were conscious at the time of admission and expected to survive, the incident has sparked a criminal investigation by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office into how fentanyl came to enter the facility.
Fentanyl is a particularly potent synthetic opioid that can be lethal even in small doses. It is sometimes abused or added to other drugs without the user’s knowledge. Health officials have warned that its role in drug overdose deaths in the United States has been increasing since 2016, with the rate of fentanyl overdose deaths soaring by 279 percent according to the National Center for Health Statistics’ National Vital Statistics System.
Since the probability of fentanyl entering jails and prisons has become a persistent problem, the Snohomish County Jail started taking action by arming all corrections deputies with Narcan, an anti-overdose medication, in early 2023. It seems that this decision was just in time to stop the seven inmates from becoming fatalities.
The incident is believed to have been caused by the inmates’ proximity to fentanyl, with the substance likely coming from one of the inmates. The jail is examining how the drug entered the facility. Samples are being tested to confirm whether or not fentanyl was present in the inmates’ systems. No deaths have been reported in connection with the incident, and five out of the seven inmates have already been discharged.
This is not the first time a fentanyl overdose has happened at this jail. In April 2023, another inmate died of a suspected fentanyl overdose, causing the jail to increase security and monitoring. Unfortunately, those measures do not seem to have been enough to prevent another overdose.
Fentanyl’s potency and increasing use to stretch other substances, such as heroin, have made it particularly dangerous in the context of prisons and jails. As more and more inmates are put at risk of overdosing, further action may be necessary to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
It is essential to have a clear strategy in place to prevent inmates from accessing fentanyl while they are incarcerated, including better screening and supervision by staff and implementing other forms of harm reduction. As the country struggles to address the growing opioid crisis, including the increasing role of fentanyl, it’s clear that more must be done to ensure that those individuals in the criminal justice system have access to resources and treatment to avoid deadly encounters with these substances.
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