Fentanyl overdoses claim the lives of residents of Los Angeles County

The synthetic opioid, fentanyl, has become Los Angeles County’s deadliest drug, decimating various communities.  

There are specific communities that lack accessibility to resources, suggesting that the fentanyl epidemic stems from deeper issues within the national system that should receive immediate attention.

According to statistics provided by the LA County Department of Public Health, there were 3,200 accidental drug overdoses in 2022—1,900 of which can be attributed to fentanyl. 

The director of the Substance Abuse Prevention and Control division in the LA County Department of Public Health Dr. Gary Tsai said, “We’re still amid the worst overdose crisis in history, and that’s obviously an emergency situation.”

Black communities, specifically those in underserved areas, are the main victims of the fentanyl epidemic. Although the Black community constitutes 8% of the population of LA County, it accounted for 21% of fentanyl overdose fatalities. 

Overdose has become the main cause of death for the unhoused population because indulging in drugs alone, which is a more frequent occurrence when living on streets, substantially heightens the risk of overdose. Tsai said that the impact of fentanyl on the Black community can be attributed to the fact that many of them are unhoused. 

Skid Row, a neighborhood in downtown LA with one of the largest homeless populations in the country, is especially susceptible and exposed to the dangerous effects of fentanyl. The majority of the residents of Skid Row are African-American, further reinforcing the association of certain demographics with overdose. 

Community outreach programs, such as the Community Health Project Los Angeles,  have demonstrated efforts to distribute naloxone, a medication that can reduce the impact of opioids, to the unhoused community in LA. 

The programs also provide information about utilizing clean needles and responding to reports of overdoses. 

“We’re doing a lot of work to improve our system, but there’s obviously still a lot of work that we have to do,” said Tsai. 

Surveys conducted by the Los Angeles Times detail that many residents of Skid Row began to use fentanyl to cope after a traumatic event occurred in their lives. 

These results highlight the importance of not only treatments for overdose but also the ability to reach people before they view substance use as the only solution to their problems.

Amanda Cowan, executive director of Community Health Project Los Angeles, said that officials and the general population need to view substance abuse not as an “individual failing, but a structural and societal issue.”

Providing more resources to address housing and mental health issues can be a major stepping stone in solving the multifaceted crisis at hand.