Bills lifting prohibitions on fentanyl test strips moving in West Virginia Legislature
Trending
CHARLESTON -- The West Virginia Senate and House of Delegates are quickly moving bills to provide first responders and the public access to an important tool in the fight against fentanyl overdoses.
The House Committee on Prevention and Treatment of Substance Abuse recommended House Bill 4429 for passage Wednesday, sending it to the House Judiciary Committee for further review. The Senate Judiciary Committee recommended a committee substitute for a similar bill, Senate Bill 269, on Tuesday.
Both bills have the same goal: to remove fentanyl test strips from the definition in state code for drug paraphernalia, allowing for the sale, possession and distribution of fentanyl test strips. The bills would make clear that these test strips are not prohibited under the state's Uniform Controlled Substances statutes.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the test strips allow for the detection of fentanyl in different kinds of drugs, such as cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and others. The strips also allow for detection of fentanyl in various drug forms, such as pills, powder or injectables.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is potent in small doses and more powerful than most prescription opioids or illegal opioids such as heroin. Other drugs, including marijuana and other narcotics, are often laced with fentanyl in order to increase the high the user receives. But due to its potency, it only takes a small amount of fentanyl to trigger an overdose. Test strips allow first responders and even users themselves to see if there are traces of fentanyl in drugs.
The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration recommended the distribution of fentanyl test strips as a form of harm reduction to mitigate the potential for lethal drug overdoses.
But according to the libertarian Cato Institute, 42 states and Washington D.C. make fentanyl test strip purchase, distribution and use illegal.
Rachel Thaxton, the interim director of the Office of Drug Control Policy, told committee members Wednesday that despite seeing decreases from mid-2017 to the fall of 2019, overdose deaths began to increase going into 2020 and spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The effects of COVID-19 coupled with a surge of fentanyl in the drug supply created that deadly and aggressive trend in overdoses you see in 2020 and 2021," Thaxton said.
According to the data dashboard managed by the West Virginia Office of Drug Control Policy, there were 1,134 lethal fentanyl overdoses in 2021, representing more than 75% of the state's total 1,507 fatal drug overdoses that year and 91% of all fatal opioid overdoses. There has been a nearly 92% increase in fatal fentanyl overdoses from five years ago when there were only 591 recorded fatal fentanyl overdoses.
Thaxton said overdose deaths in the state have been trending below estimates for 2023, with an 8.1% decrease in overdose deaths between October 2022 and October 2023. But Thaxton said it's too early to see if the totals will decrease.
"Looking right now at 2023, it's too close to tell what we will see when we have those final numbers," Thaxton said. "We don't expect to see an increase. ... We think it will either plateau or we will see a slight decrease. But the drug trends in West Virginia and across the country are evolving everyday."
Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com.