Texas launches statewide campaign to combat opioid epidemic

PalestineHerald.com

AUSTIN — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday announced a statewide campaign that will work to combat the growing opioid epidemic.

Known as One Pill Kills, the campaign will bring awareness to the rise in opioid overdoses across the country, particularly with the synthetic opioid fentanyl.

In 2021, Texas reported more than 1,600 fentanyl-related deaths, up from about 200 in 2018.

“We realized with the magnitude of the problem that we're dealing with, more must be done,” Abbott said during a news conference in Beaumont.

Abbott also laid out his legislative priorities related to the epidemic should he be reelected in November. This includes three proposed laws he said he would champion.

The first would reclassify fentanyl overdoses as fentanyl poisonings.

Abbott said the change in wording would highlight that fentanyl often is laced into other pills, meaning that the individual who consumes the pill may not do so with the intent to take the opioid but is instead misinformed on its contents. As little as two milligrams of fentanyl could be fatal to an adult.

The second proposed law would charge someone with murder for knowingly distributing fentanyl or drugs laced with fentanyl that kills someone. 

Third, the state would make Narcan more readily available to law enforcement agencies, schools and hospitals, Abbott said. Narcan is an antidote that can be used in an emergency situation to reverse a narcotic overdose.

The Texas Tribune reported in August that the state’s federally funded More Narcan Please program ran out of money in January due to high demand. That program has since been refunded.

“The bottom line is, this is something we have to distribute across the state of Texas,” Abbott said. “We’ll need to look for the areas where fentanyl is found most predominantly and make sure Narcan is easily available there.”

Abbott blamed the rise in fentanyl overdoses on the Biden administration, claiming there is an influx of opioids crossing the southern border. 

He previously militarized the state’s border with Mexico through Operation Lone Star to address drug trafficking and recently designated Mexican cartels as terrorists.

“Fentanyl truly is a clandestine killer caused by Mexican drug cartels. Cartels are terrorists and it's time that we started treating them that way,” he said during the news conference. 

Abbott’s gubernatorial opponent, Democrat Beto O’Rourke, has not been vocal on plans to address the opioid epidemic during his campaign, instead turning to school safety, reproductive care and affordable health care.