State, County, and City officials in Oregon have declared a 90-day state of emergency for Portland’s Central City area as the ongoing fentanyl crisis continues to impact public health and safety in the area.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, and Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson declared a tri-government fentanyl emergency on Tuesday.
As part of the emergency response, the city, state, and county will direct relevant agencies to work alongside each other and commit available resources to tackle the crisis, including establishing a “command center” in the central city through which various agencies will coordinate strategies and response efforts.
The Command Center will serve to “refocus existing resources” and will share and report publicly data on the impacts of fentanyl in downtown, although personal health care data and other protected information will not be made public, officials said.
It will also use data to “identify and respond to acute needs and gaps in service, identify any specific resources necessary to address gaps, and establish a system to coordinate that can be sustained beyond the 90-day startup period,” officials said.
Mike Myers, the director of Portland’s Community Safety Division, will head the city’s command team, according to officials, while Nathan Reynolds, deputy policy chief at the state’s Office of Resilience and Emergency Management, will be the state’s incident commander and former Health Officer Dr. Jennifer Vines will lead the command team for the County.
All three will be responsible for coordinating resources from the jurisdiction they represent, according to officials.
Additionally, city, state, and county officials will run a coordinated outreach program aimed at preventing exposure to fentanyl and reducing harm among individuals using synthetic opioids and other substances.
Officials, alongside first responders, will also increase access to outreach, treatment, and recovery programs and address individuals’ housing needs, according to the declarations.
Fentanyl Overdoses Rise
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine, was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat acute pain. As little as two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal. It is also extremely addictive.Announcing the tri-government actions, Ms. Kotek noted the ongoing opioid is impacting not just the state but the entire nation, with the deadly synthetic drug fentanyl leading to the deaths of thousands of Americans each year.
“Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly and addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,” Ms. Kotek said. “The Chair, the Mayor and I recognize the need to act with urgency and unity across our public health and community safety systems to make a dent in this crisis. We are all in this together.”
Ms. Kotek added that the next 90 days will “yield unprecedented collaboration and focused resources targeting fentanyl and provide a roadmap for the next steps.”
Elsewhere, Portland Mayor Wheeler said the joint emergency declarations are “exactly the type of coordinated action needed to make a direct impact and a lasting difference.”
The discussions come more than a year after they were put on hold amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing in the wake of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Wang Xiaohong, China’s public security minister, said his deputy—who attended the closed-door talks with U.S. officials earlier in the day— had reached a “common understanding on the work plan” with officials and hopes the two delegations could “enhance and expand cooperation to provide more positive energy for stable, sound and sustainable China-U.S. relations.”
Senior U.S. officials from the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, State, and Treasury participated in Tuesday’s talks. U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns was also in attendance.
