Cox launches task force to address Utah’s fentanyl crisis

SALT LAKE CITY – “If I wanted to break generational addiction, it had to start with me.”

Mysti Lopez started using methamphetamine at just 15 years old and became instantly addicted.

“I come from generational abuse, generational addiction,” Lopez said. “There were no hopes or dreams outside of this criminal box I was shown.”

Lopez is one of hundreds of people who have gotten their hands on fentanyl in Utah. He says he was off hard drugs for over 10 years at one point, but then relapsed.

“The moment I set foot on it again and I was looking for it, I was able to find it that day. It’s on every corner, at every gas station, everywhere,” he explained.

Lopez isn’t the only one who knows how accessible fentanyl is in the state, which Gov. Spencer Cox admits is a growing problem.

“There’s enough fentanyl coming into this country in just a couple of days to kill everybody in the country,” the governor said Tuesday.

In 2018, Utah authorities seized 1,600 fentanyl pills measured in dosage units. By 2020, that number had risen to nearly 1,500. Three years later, pill seizures exploded to nearly 2 million pills.

Cox believes fentanyl is powerful and more accessible than any other drug, and the deaths in Utah are only increasing.

“The number of deaths from fentanyl more than doubled between 2019 and 2020,” Cox shared. “The number of overdose deaths in 2023 reached (the) highest number in Utah with 606 deaths. 290 of the overdose deaths in 2023 were related to fentanyl.”

To address the problem, Cox introduced a new task force focused on dealing with Utah’s fentanyl crisis.

Utah has partnered with state leaders to come up with solutions, expand task forces, track trafficking networks, introduce more education programs and treatment initiatives, and uncover the social, economic and psychological influences driving fentanyl use in the state .

Cox and the task force are determined to break the cycle by providing addiction treatment and programs like Drug Court to newly released people.

Understand that it is not an easy or short process.

“It may take 2, 3, 7 or 10 tries to break the cycle and get out of it. And that’s okay,” Cox said. “Just because you tried and failed doesn’t mean you’re a terrible human being. It means you are a human being.

“We can’t give up on people.”

No one gave up on Lopez.

He is someone who went through Drug Court and addiction treatment and came back a new person. Lopez opened a treatment center with her husband to provide safety and resources to those struggling as she did.

“There is a huge stigma attached to people who have suffered from substance abuse,” she shared. “They think once a criminal, always a criminal. Once an addict, always an addict. But I’d like to break that barrier.”