Southeast Alaska has seen an uptick in fentanyl-laced pills. Fentanyl is a highly addictive opioid fifty to a hundred times stronger than morphine. In Petersburg and other Southeast communities, law enforcement has found fentanyl most often in counterfeit blue pills which are designed to look like the prescription opioid oxycontin.
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Alaska was recently awarded a multimillion dollar federal grant to combat its growing opioid problem. With the money, the state Department of Health and Social Services has launched Project Hope – which aims to distribute 5000 kits containing a life saving drug called Naloxone, also known as Narcan, around the state. The Petersburg Public Health Center received ten of those kits.
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School and public-health officials are warning Petersburg residents about pertussis, also known as whooping cough.
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