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Governor Cox Announces Task Force to Combat Fentanyl Crisis

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Governor Cox Announces Task Force to Combat Fentanyl Crisis

SALT LAKE CITY — Mysti Lopez grew up surrounded by a history of addiction that “runs deep” on both sides of her family.

Her father was a heroin addict and her mother struggled with meth addiction, according to Lopez, who said everyone in her family was affected by addiction in one way or another. another

“Despite telling myself I would never be like them, I eventually found myself walking the same path,” he told reporters Tuesday at Salt Lake City’s Cottonwood Park. “Heroin was my first escape, but fentanyl quickly followed. It was easy to get, too easy, in fact.”

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Falling into the “trap” of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that has exploded in popularity in the United States in recent years, was easy, he said, but getting out was much harder. Finding the drug is so easy, he explained, that he could probably find someone selling it within a 5- to 10-minute walk along the nearby Jordan River Trail.

Lopez eventually found herself getting clean, thanks to an arrest that landed her in drug court, which she described as divine intervention. She has now been sober for 3 1/2 years and helped start a virtual outpatient recovery center for those struggling with addiction.

“It means everything to me,” she said. “Now I have all my kids in my house and I give them a place of safety and a place of hope and I teach them to live a substance-free life as a coping skill. So just showing up and being present, which is the most important part.”

While Lopez’s story has been positive so far, many in Utah aren’t so lucky. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said state troopers have seen a dramatic increase in seized fentanyl pills and the state has seen a growing number of overdose deaths. Six years ago, in 2018, troopers recovered 1,600 doses of fentanyl, he said. By 2020, that number had risen to around 15,000, before jumping to nearly 2 million last year.

Read the full KSL.com story here.

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