GRANDVIEW, Wash. – Representative Dan Newhouse established the Central Washington Fentanyl Task Force in May 2023. Rep. Newhouse and the task force held their first quarterly meeting in Grandview today.
According to the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, Fentanyl is the deadliest drug the nation has dealt with, ever.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, over 108,000 people have died in a 12-month span ending in January 2022. 67% of those are from fentanyl.
“We are determined to be able to say we’ve done more than talk about it,” said U.S. Representative Dan Newhouse. “We want to come out here with specific actions.”
Rep. Newhouse at the media conference tells me they talked about a range of things.
“Educating young people from the dangers of some of these drugs to educating the general public about the need of increasing the resources that are available in order to address these problems,” said Newhouse.
According to Newhouse the purpose of this task force is vital.
“We got folks from the treatment world, medical professionals,” Newhouse said. “People that deal with this on a daily basis. We also have people involved in prevention and education activities focused on our youth.”
Newhouse says the task force includes not only medical professionals, law enforcement, and state representatives, but also family members.
Andrew Wonacott joined the task force because his family was affected by the deadly drug.
“I lost fifty percent of my family to fentanyl,” said Wonacott. “My youngest boy and my middle boy a year apart. Unfortunately, they got into some drugs that were laced with fentanyl and killed them both.”
Rep. Newhouse says the task force isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, however, he says if you know something they don’t, he wants to hear from you.
“If there are other task forces or other groups that have already come up with things that would be valuable to what we’re trying to accomplish,” said Newhouse. “You guys could help us identify them, that would be very helpful.”
Newhouse told me he’s planning the next quarterly meeting for sometime in October. At that meeting, they will discuss fentanyl statistics in Central Washington.
