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- Utah's Fentanyl Task Force convened to address rising fentanyl-related overdoses and seizures.
- Fentanyl surpassed methamphetamine in 2023 as Utah's most common overdose drug.
- Four working groups will make recommendations ahead of next year's legislative session.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's newly formed Fentanyl Task Force met for the first time Thursday morning with dozens of law enforcement officials, agency heads and health care advisers huddling in the state Capitol to begin hashing out their approach to combat the growing threat posed by the synthetic opioid.
Gov. Spencer Cox announced the task force at a press conference last month, noting the number of fentanyl pill seizures has increased dramatically in the past several years.
The deadly effects of fentanyl have also been on the rise in Utah, according to Megan Broekemeier, a drug overdose prevention research coordinator with the state Office of the Medical Examiner. She told the task force fentanyl surpassed methamphetamine in 2023 as the drug most commonly involved in overdoses in the state.
"There were 606 overdose deaths in Utah in 2023, which is the highest number on record," she said. "This was a 14% increase compared to our numbers in 2022. ... So, over the last couple of years, we definitely have seen an increase in the number of overdoses — and you all know this is largely driven by fentanyl."
While the increase in fentanyl overdoses represents a concerning trend, Broekemeier noted that Utah has seen a decade-long downward trend in overdoses from prescription opioids and a recent downtick in heroin overdoses. Prescription opioids were involved in nearly 70% of overdoses 10 years ago, but that has fallen to less than 30% in 2023.
"You can see the significant reduction in the number of deaths that involved a prescription opioid, and I think this just really shows what we can do when we put a lot of energy and resources into preventing something, and we did an awesome job with this," she said.
Fentanyl has also surpassed methamphetamine as the most frequent illicit substance submitted to the state Bureau of Forensic Services laboratories, according to the Utah Department of Public Safety. Bill Newell, the state's Crime Gun Intelligence Center coordinator, said the explosion of fentanyl has coincided with the drug being laced with other illicit substances and said the cost per pill has fallen steeply compared with last decade.
"Assume fentanyl is in everything," he said.
Law enforcement has determined fentanyl generally flows into Utah traveling north from Phoenix or traveling east from Los Angeles. It was previously thought that a significant portion of the pills seized in Utah were being trafficked to other states to be sold, but Newell said a higher percentage of pills now have the Beehive State as a target destination.
"We're known as the crossroads of the West, for good and for bad," he said. "In this case, unfortunately for bad — it's a crossroads of the West for drugs as well."
The task force met for just shy of two hours Thursday and set plans to convene again early next year — likely ahead of the 2025 general legislative session, which begins Jan. 21. Although the panel did not take concrete steps, four proposed working groups will be convened to focus on solutions from various perspectives, including data and analysis; outreach and education; prevention, treatment and recovery; and law enforcement and prosecution.
Public Safety Commissioner Jess Anderson said the task force will work closely with state lawmakers to identify policies that might address some of the "low-hanging fruit right away."
