Amid an ongoing opioid crisis, a special California National Guard task force helped seize 1,542 pounds of fentanyl last month, with a street value of approximately $11.9 million, a Governor Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday.
National opioid crisis continues to grip California even as individual counties record a plateau in drug overdose-related deaths.
State officials are responding by doubling their staff and investing millions in a special task force charged with removing fentanyl pills and other illicit opioids from street sales.
In October, the California National Guard Drug Task Force helped seize more than 1.7 million fentanyl pills. The effort comes after Newsom increased the number of soldiers earlier this year, from 155 to 392 to stop the entry of fentanyl through state ports.
“California continues its intensive work to keep fentanyl out of our communities, helping law enforcement seize more than 204% more fentanyl last month than the month before,” Newsom said in a statement from press Tuesday.
The task force was launched in 2022, when approximately 30 military personnel were deployed to the San Ysidro, Otay Mesa, Tecate and Calexico ports of entry. After its “initial success,” the working group doubled in size after receiving a A federal investment of $30 million to end drug trafficking by transnational criminal organizations and respond to humanitarian and security efforts, state officials say.
Last year, the task force and the California Highway Patrol were deployed in San Francisco to help police and prosecutors combat the city’s fentanyl crisis. Some said the plan lacked specificity while others said it targeted low-income neighborhoods such as the Tenderloin. But Newsom assured critics that the partnership targeted drug dealers and suppliers, not people addicted to drugs.
In 2023, 810 people in San Francisco died from unintentional drug overdoses, according to the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Around 540 people died from an accidental overdose in San Francisco between January and October 2024.
Medications most often reported these deaths included fentanyl, heroin, medical opioids, methamphetamine, and cocaine.
In Los Angeles County, the number of victims increased from 3,220 in 2022 to 3,092 in 2023, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
The slight decline is partly attributed to community distribution of naloxonea medicine used to reverse the effects of opioids and stabilize breathing. About 5,000 overdoses have been reversed with naloxone starting in 2022, according to LA County Health Services.
