Growing fentanyl crisis is leaving ‘trail of death’ in its wake, federal officials warn
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Federal health officials warned Tuesday that an epidemic that has killed hundreds of people in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia is leaving a trail of death and addiction that has now spread to at least 16 other states and to other countries.
The warning came as President Donald Trump on Tuesday blamed a long-festering racial tension in America for drug abuse that is fueling the overdose crisis.
The Department of Health and Human Services issued a fact sheet detailing the extent of the toll, which was nearly double the previous record of 776 overdose deaths in 2016.
The fact sheet said the latest numbers represent 3,400 deaths from overdose that year, nearly double the 1,078 deaths the previous year.
The fact sheet also pointed out that the number of overdose deaths has tripled in Kentucky since 2006.
The crisis has prompted lawmakers to introduce bills aimed at combating an increase in traffic fatalities, among other measures.
“These overdose numbers are not acceptable,” said U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky, a Democrat who chairs the House of Representatives health committee. He was joined on the radio by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.
“This crisis is not on the southern border. It’s here, in America, and we can’t let it pass us by,” said Yarmuth in an interview on “The Young Turks.”
Kentucky state Rep. David Owens, D-Louisville, said it’s a crisis that “will eventually cause us to lose our country.”
“We’ve got to call it out. We’ve got to fight for this country,” Owens said in an interview. “We cannot let them pass us by any further. We have to be ready to deal with the fallout if it is not met and fixed properly.”
The drug crisis has been called an opiate epidemic. The fact sheet did not specifically cite the problem as involving opioids, but it did note heroin is the leading cause of overdose deaths, accounting for roughly two thirds of the deaths the fact sheet recorded.
The federal report does not track addiction, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classified as a disease. The latest numbers show addiction is the primary source of overdose deaths.
“This epidemic has no respect for our young people,
