CALIFORNIA, USA — California State Assembly holds the first hearing of the committee on fentanyl, opioid addiction, and overdose prevention Wednesday.
The committee was created in September but this is the first time they're holding a hearing. The hearing covers the fentanyl and overdose crisis including an overview of state and local public health response, state and local legal response and education efforts.
It is being held jointly with the Assembly Health and Assembly Public Safety Committees.
The hearing comes after fentanyl-related bills from Democrats and Republicans didn't pass.
Assemblymember Matt Haney told ABC10 the hearing is just information and he doesn't expect real results from it.
"We're bringing everyone together, the Department of Justice, the Department of Public Health, law enforcement officials, treatment advocates, and we're going to get together and talk about solutions," Haney said.
"We have members elected here that fundamentally do not believe in accountability, they don't believe in consequences, and they don't believe in passing any bill that will potentially incarcerate or imprison anybody doing anything wrong. That's it, that's the end of the story. They will not pass a bill that results in increased prison time. All this task force and tour is just window dressing," said Assemblymember Bill Essayli.
Haney says he wants to hold hearings across the state in different communities because everyone's impacted by this drug.
More than 107,600 people died from overdoses in 2021 based on provisional data from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. That's an increase of nearly 15% from 2020. Overdoses due to opioids increased from about 70,000 in 2020 to about 80,800 in 2021.
Overdoses due to synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl, also increased in 2021 compared to 2020, according to the CDC.
Just two milligrams of fentanyl, which is equal to about 10-15 grains of table salt, is considered a lethal dose, according to the DEA. Fentanyl is so dangerous because its potency is 50-100x stronger than morphine, according to the CDC.
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