Utah’s rural community at the crossroads of the fentanyl epidemic

PRICE — The highway to Price has more abandoned cattle than moving cars. Across the windswept canyons is an abandoned, sunken ghost town and periods of no cell phone service. U.S. 6 may seem out of sight and out of mind for northern city dwellers, but it’s one of the routes drug traffickers take to distribute fentanyl and heroin to dealers across the state.

Price, in the heart of Utah’s Carbon County, finds itself at the crossroads of a growing and deadly drug problem in Utah.

With a population of just over 8,000, this rural town has seen the devastation of opioid addiction and fentanyl use firsthand. Many residents work in blue-collar jobs that carry a higher risk of on-the-job injuries, and the county’s poverty rate exceeds what’s typically seen on the Wasatch Front.

The rate of opioid deaths in Carbon County and the two neighboring counties of Grand and Emery far exceeds the state’s death rate. Utah’s overall death rate is 18.3 per 100,000 people, but these counties along the Mexico-Salt Lake City Interstate have a death rate of 42.7 per 100,000 people, according to the most recent data from the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, from 2021. Prescription opioid rates? That’s higher, too.

The 2023 figures have not yet been finalised but are expected to be released in an analysis later this month. They show a dramatic increase.

Fentanyl has become “the single greatest drug threat,” according to a recent report from the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, the group appointed by the White House to coordinate federal, state and local efforts to combat violent drug trafficking organizations.

“Unprecedented levels of availability and demand have flooded the region with fentanyl pills and increasingly, fentanyl powder,” the report said. “A significant drop in price, high potency, and widespread use in polydrug compounds, which continue to cause fatal overdoses, are increasing the threat of fentanyl in local communities across the Rocky Mountain region.”

To understand the fentanyl epidemic, Deseret News combed through years of data and interviewed more than 20 people connected to the crisis, including people in recovery, former fentanyl distributors, law enforcement officials and recovery specialists. This is the first in a series of articles analyzing the problem and exploring possible solutions.

Fentanyl is more potent than morphine and has flooded the streets. According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, seven out of 10 fentanyl pills contain a lethal dose. And while fentanyl is on the rise, so are two other opioids: xylazine and carfentanil.

Carfentanil is a synthetic opioid like fentanyl, but more potent. It’s used to sedate elephants and other large mammals. It’s 100 times more potent than fentanyl and can be lethal at just 2 milligrams (a fraction of a penny), according to Bill Newell, coordinator of the Utah Crime Gun Intelligence Center. Xylazine, sometimes called Tranq, is a tranquilizer and muscle relaxant used in animals. On the streets, it’s mixed with fentanyl.

Naloxone, which is used to treat heroin addiction, cannot reverse an overdose.

The vast majority of fentanyl is produced outside the U.S., said Dustin Gillespie, assistant special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Rocky Mountain Division. Fentanyl is made by the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels in Mexico, said Gillespie, who spoke to the Deseret News from the agency’s Salt Lake City office along with fellow DEA agents Enoch Smith and Brandon Scott.

“They have to get the precursor chemicals from somewhere, and they don’t produce them in Mexico,” Gillespie said. “So they have to get them from China and, to a lesser extent, from India.” Because those precursor chemicals have legitimate uses, it’s difficult to monitor.

The chemicals are mislabeled when shipped from China to Mexico, and the cartels will obtain them at ports along the West Coast, Gillespie said. The fentanyl drug market is decentralized because it doesn’t require much equipment to make the drug.

“It’s all done through extortion and violence. There’s no pension plan,” Gillespie said. People who make fentanyl often die from exposure or are killed by the cartel, Gillespie explained.

The cartels have oversaturated the market with fentanyl, and Price, the county seat of Carbon County, is located right on a highway used by drug traffickers.

“This is my chance to live the life I was meant to live”

Allison Jackson, a Price resident, knows firsthand how devastating the impact of opioids can be. After police arrested Jackson for drug distribution, she spent two months in the Emery County Jail wondering how she got there. Jackson’s drug addiction began when she was 28, after a doctor prescribed her painkillers.

Jackson said she experienced withdrawal symptoms after the pills were abruptly withdrawn. As a young mother of four at the time, she said these withdrawal symptoms cost her children time and she felt the need to find more pills. So she did.

And then she became addicted to opioids and eventually to heroin.

“By continuing with my addiction instead of seeking help sooner, I distanced myself from my children, my home, and every relationship that was meaningful to me because my addiction was in control,” Jackson said in an interview.

Read the full story on Deseret.com.