By Melissa Wagoner
In late September one Silverton father got a call he hoped he would never get. His 16-year-old daughter had just overdosed on fentanyl and was being rushed to the hospital.
“I didn’t expect it to be her,” the father – who has asked to remain nameless – said. His daughter, who has since recovered, had been sold the dangerous drug in her own hometown.
“I think the community should know there’s a problem,” he added.
Fentanyl is a problem in Oregon, according to Sergeant Eric Strohmeyer. He has been a member of the Portland Police Bureau’s Narcotics and Organized Crime High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas and Addiction Task Force for the past eight years.
“For Portland my team gets notified on every drug overdose and last year we broke our record at 156. I would say 75 percent were fentanyl,” Strohmeyer said. “Right now, we’re at 260 and I would say 90 percent is fentanyl. So, from my perspective, that it is dangerous is extremely true.”
Relatively stable in pill form, Strohmeyer said the real risk – to those who are not actively engaging in its use – is when it is a powder.
“Powdered fentanyl is a big deal,” Strohmeyer said. “All it needs is for a bit of wind to kick up and you ingest it.
“We have very specific processes just to test the powder because it can become airborne so easily. It’s the universal precautions… wear gloves and a Kn95 mask,” he added.
If an overdose is suspected, Strohmeyer advises immediately seeking emergency services that carry NARCAN – the name brand of the most common medication used to combat an opioid overdose by blocking the receptors in the brain.
“We all have NARCAN…” Silverton Police Department Captain Todd Engstrom said when asked about the ability of the medication locally. “Often [the police] beat the ambulance… and that’s why we all carry NARCAN, and we all carry AEDs [automated external defibrillators].”
But NARCAN isn’t commonly used, at least not in Silverton, he said.
“They’re smoking fentanyl pills,” Engstrom said of the drug use he and other officers are finding.
“We’re seeing that around town… But there’s not many problems in Silverton – or they’re very small problems.”
And almost none of those issues are with Silverton’s youth.
“We know there are people in town using,” he said. “We know there are people selling in town. But we’re not catching kids with it… And if I had kids in school here, I would not be concerned.”
Engstrom advises parents to educate their kids about the harm that comes from drug use. Strohmeyer additionally suggests monitoring phone use and social media accounts like Instagram and Snapchat – where the Portland Police see most drug deals taking place.
“The dealers are not hiding a thing,” he said. “They may be using slang, but that’s the biggest thing.”
If parents are already aware that drugs are an issue for their child, Strohmeyer suggests stocking NARCAN nasal spray at home.
Although the Silverton police continue to observe very little fentanyl use among youth, Portland’s numbers are climbing – from seven teen-aged overdose deaths between the years 2020 and 2022 to nine reported deaths in just the past four months.
“We’ve seen the biggest jump in juvenile deaths,” Strohmeyer confirmed. Adding that, while the reported numbers already show an alarming increase, the actual number of children hospitalized due to fentanyl overdose may be even higher owing to a lag in reporting by area hospitals.
“It’s so cheap,” Strohmeyer said, naming the main reason fentanyl has become such a widely available drug. “Fentanyl is really the one drug I’ve seen that knows no socioeconomic boundaries.”
Which is perhaps why it’s found, to varying degrees, across the entire state.
“This summer we had a traffic stop that turned into a drug stop,” Engstrom said, describing the biggest fentanyl bust – 211 pills – that the Silverton Police has made thus far.
“But [the driver] came from down south.”
Which is perhaps why Captain Engstrom remains optimistic that fentanyl use in Silverton will remain low.
“The people in this town are very vigilant,” he pointed out. “They watch out for each other, and they call us.”
‘We know there are people in town using. We know there are people selling in town.
But we’re not catching kids with it.’
– Silverton Police Department Captain Todd Engstrom
