King County leaders discuss rising death toll from drugs and alcohol

Local leaders and individuals in recovery came together today at Bellevue College to address the rising death toll from drug and alcohol addiction. Recent data collected by epidemiologists suggest an estimated four people die every day from an overdose in King County.

Current estimates show that nearly 500 people died from drug or alcohol poisoning in King County so far this year. King County Councilman Reagan Dunn warns that if this trend continues the county could see 1,300 deaths by the end of the year.

“There has been an incredible increase in deaths,” Dunn said. “Unlike anything we have ever seen on record.”

Local leaders discussed the barriers to solving the crisis and the need for an action plan. Washington State Representative Lauren Davis spoke about the lack of funding for outreach and recovery programs. She argues too much money is funneled into treatment.

“We continue to fund one leg of a three-legged stool and wonder why the stool keeps falling down,” said Davis. “We’ve invested almost zero dollars on the recovery side of the ledger and the outreach side of the ledger.”

Brad Finegood, a Seattle & King County Behavioral Health Advisor, says fentanyl use has spiraled out of control.

“Fentanyl is really not in everything, fentanyl just is everything,” said Finegood. “When I first came to the county in 2014, we had three fentanyl-related overdoses in our county. Last year we had over 700.”

Students from the Seattle Recovery Academy also addressed the crowd. Student Amy Martinez-Lopez tells KIRO 7′s Lauren Donovan that kids aren’t just accidentally ingesting the potent drug when it is cut with others. She believes many are specifically seeking out the synthetic opioid for the high.

“It’s so normalized and it’s kind of what a lot of teenagers are doing,” said Martinez-Lopez. “But I do think it got more popular because it was easier to lace stuff with it.”

The 18-year-old believes the community she’s made at the Recovery Academy has made a world of difference in her recovery journey. The school located in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood is the only of its kind in the entire state. Students like Martinez-Lopez attend routine classes like math and English while also receiving given individualized recovery plans and on-site substance use counseling.

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