‘Now is not the time’: Trump cuts to L.A. overdose prevention efforts alarm experts

[ad_1] Practically a decade into California’s fentanyl disaster, public well being specialists are discovering trigger for each optimism and fear.

Deadly opioid overdoses within the state have lastly receded from file highs, with round 6,700 deaths recorded within the first half of 2024 — a roughly 16% drop from 2023’s peak.

However medical doctors, researchers and a few L.A. County officers warn that many key measures credited with turning the tide are in jeopardy. President Trump has slashed federal funding for dependancy therapy packages, with some providers in L.A. County on the chopping block.

Preliminary L.A. County knowledge present round 1,300 deadly overdoses attributable to fentanyl and different opioids by way of mid-2024, round 300 fewer deaths in comparison with the same time in 2023.

A number of specialists mentioned an emphasis on hurt discount, together with elevated availability of the overdose reversal drug naloxone and fentanyl testing kits, was behind the development.

However cash earmarked to assist such efforts is now drying up.

An L.A. County Public Well being Division spokesperson mentioned the federal cuts included rescinding greater than $45 million in hurt discount grants. Some funding for substance abuse prevention was additionally terminated mid-contract because of the federal finances adjustments, the spokesperson mentioned.

“Simply as we’re making progress on overdose numbers, now will not be the time to divest,” the Public Well being Division’s assertion mentioned.

On the similar time, native authorities are re-embracing a extra conventional strategy to combating crime, which incorporates pursuing longer jail sentences towards some drug offenders.

Californians voted to move Proposition 36 over the past election cycle, imposing stricter penalties for repeat theft and crimes involving fentanyl.

L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman campaigned final yr on the drug disaster, pledging to carry “fentanyl poisoners/murderers totally accountable for his or her actions of spreading this poison all through our communities.”

“Each fentanyl seller will likely be warned of the extreme repercussions to their liberty in the event that they kill an individual with their poison,” Hochman’s marketing campaign web site mentioned.

<img class="image" alt="A person holding the overdose reversal drug naloxone and a syringe" srcset="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/688cfc2/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6182x4121+0+0/resize/320x213!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F00%2Fff%2F684c76964281bac3edbb836e363f%2F911463-me-naloxone-distribution-gxc-1034.jpg 320w,https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5b92e7d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6182x4121+0+0/resize/568x379!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F00%2Fff%2F684c76964281bac3edbb836e363f%2F911463-me-naloxone-distribution-gxc-1034.jpg 568w,https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/e648310/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6182x4121+0+0/resize/768x512!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F00%2Fff%2F684c76964281bac3edbb836e363f%2F911463-me-naloxone-distribution-gxc-1034.jpg 768w,https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/3b00fa2/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6182x4121+0+0/resize/1024x683!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F00%2Fff%2F684c76964281bac3edbb836e363f%2F911463-me-naloxone-distribution-gxc-1034.jpg 1024w,https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/9f67aad/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6182x4121+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F00%2Fff%2F684c76964281bac3edbb836e363f%2F911463-me-naloxone-distribution-gxc-1034.jpg 1200w" sizes="100vw" width="1200" height="800" src="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/9f67aad/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6182x4121+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F00%2Fff%2F684c76964281bac3edbb836e363f%2F911463-me-naloxone-distribution-gxc-1034.jpg" decoding="async" loading="lazy"/> Hurt discount staff in Santa Ana distribute the overdose reversal drug naloxone and syringes to purchasers who use opioids.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Occasions)

Ricardo Garcia, L.A. County’s public defender, mentioned the renewed emphasis on punishment for drug crimes appears like a flashback to when prolonged sentences for crack fueled mass incarceration.

“It’s one thing that we’ve seen earlier than that rises in a short time and infrequently has a devastating impact on poor communities, Black and brown communities, and fairly frankly, taxpayers, as the price of coping with this over-policing,” Garcia mentioned.

The parallels to the crack period are troubling to many engaged on the entrance traces of right now’s disaster, from dehumanizing rhetoric — describing fentanyl customers as “zombies” — to punitive sentencing insurance policies.

Shoshanna Scholar, director of hurt discount for L.A. County, mentioned the important thing to saving lives is obvious: Ramp up naloxone distribution and overdose prevention efforts in high-risk communities.

“During the last 25 years, there’s been an actual reckoning with substance use and seeing it as a power situation, versus unhealthy conduct that requires punishment in an effort to change it,” Scholar mentioned. “We all know there’s one other path and it truly works to cut back the variety of lifeless folks.”

Since 2023, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has invested over $1 billion in grants for naloxone distribution, fentanyl take a look at strips and different anti-overdose initiatives. Naloxone — also called Narcan — is now out there for buy for all California residents by way of the CalRx initiative for $24.

At this yr’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Pageant, Finish Overdose, a Burbank-based group, had a sales space close to the competition’s EDM levels providing naloxone coaching, free doses and quite a lot of swag.

On the stall, two twentysomething festivalgoers, Mimi and Lily — who requested to be recognized solely by their first names to debate drug use — mentioned that they had been taking each attainable precaution for concern they might be bought one thing laced with fentanyl.

“Truthfully, we study probably the most from Reddit and from our dad and mom. They're all the time telling me to watch out about fentanyl,” mentioned Mimi. “It jogs my memory numerous when folks promote abstinence in the case of protected intercourse, once they actually must be speaking about condoms and contraception. As a result of, both means, individuals are going to do medication, so you must be sure to are doing it safely.”

Dr. Brian Hurley, the county’s medical director who oversees dependancy therapy initiatives, mentioned implementing harsher penalties on drug customers can improve the danger of overdose, as individuals are extra possible to make use of alone and in secret.

“It turns into more durable to interact folks in an open, sincere, impartial dialog about if they're able to cease utilizing, if they're able to strive interim housing or take a shelter mattress. All of this stuff get folks off the road in a means that advances what I believe most individuals really need,” Hurley mentioned.

He and others famous that even with the tough-on-crime insurance policies of the Eighties and ’90s, crack cocaine use has by no means gone away. And regardless of native authorities saying for years that arrests and prosecutions alone should not the answer, specialists mentioned it’s nonetheless troublesome for these in want of therapy to seek out assist.

<img class="image" alt="Harm reduction worker handing out Narcan to a man" srcset="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/76e3a6c/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5472x3463+0+0/resize/320x202!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F94%2F9a%2F1d05c23e4740adc3088d97396d94%2F1403178-me-santa-monica-syringe-program7-mam.jpg 320w,https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f04d43b/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5472x3463+0+0/resize/568x359!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F94%2F9a%2F1d05c23e4740adc3088d97396d94%2F1403178-me-santa-monica-syringe-program7-mam.jpg 568w,https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f235443/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5472x3463+0+0/resize/768x486!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F94%2F9a%2F1d05c23e4740adc3088d97396d94%2F1403178-me-santa-monica-syringe-program7-mam.jpg 768w,https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/37ac51e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5472x3463+0+0/resize/1024x648!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F94%2F9a%2F1d05c23e4740adc3088d97396d94%2F1403178-me-santa-monica-syringe-program7-mam.jpg 1024w,https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1665e49/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5472x3463+0+0/resize/1200x759!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F94%2F9a%2F1d05c23e4740adc3088d97396d94%2F1403178-me-santa-monica-syringe-program7-mam.jpg 1200w" sizes="100vw" width="1200" height="759" src="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1665e49/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5472x3463+0+0/resize/1200x759!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F94%2F9a%2F1d05c23e4740adc3088d97396d94%2F1403178-me-santa-monica-syringe-program7-mam.jpg" decoding="async" loading="lazy"/> Devon O’Malley, left, a hurt discount case supervisor with the Venice Household Clinic, fingers out Narcan nasal spray to Ken Newark, 63, at Tongva Park in Santa Monica.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Occasions)

“Persons are pushing extra extreme penalties and extra arrests, but it surely’s simply that’s not the way you cease folks from utilizing a drug you don’t need them to make use of,” mentioned Dr. Ricky Bluthenthal, a public well being professor at USC. “Usually talking, incarceration isn’t a spot the place folks get higher.”

That message, nonetheless, runs opposite to the hard-line strategy now being pushed by the White Home. Trump has cited fentanyl deaths as a purpose for tariffs towards China, a supply of chemical elements utilized in clandestine labs, and urged drone strikes on Mexican drug cartels. Trump has additionally declared fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction and referred to as for giving drug sellers the loss of life penalty

For Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a UC San Francisco professor who researches public well being and drug use, it’s onerous to not see historical past repeating itself.

The professor, who not too long ago revealed a paper about “ethical panics” surrounding drug use, mentioned elected officers have lengthy been extra involved with optics and approval rankings than addressing the underlying causes of dependancy.

“We’re afraid of this drug, and we’re afraid of people that use the drug,” Ciccarone mentioned. “Once we get fearful, the pure human response is to search for safety. Who could make us really feel safer? The police and courts.”

The latest pattern in overdose deaths at the very least affords a glimmer of hope, he added, even when nobody can agree on one of the best path ahead.

“I acknowledge that as a human impulse of concern, urgency and panic, that we should do one thing,” he mentioned. “I’ve heard this from the police saying, ‘Now we have to be seen as doing one thing,’ and I say, ‘OK, however don’t make the issue worse.’”