Woke Seattle health official says its GOOD ‘folks’ are smoking FENTANYL on city’s buses

A Seattle official shared what she says are the benefits of smoking fentanyl in public, and one of the city’s bus drivers is now forced to take sick leave after drug addicts continued to smoke the substance at board your vehicle.

“I had never really heard of smoking fentanyl on the bus when Metro hired me,” Seattle Metro bus driver Stevon Williams said. KOMO News. “I don’t want to be put in a situation where I’m surrounded by drugs every day at my job, I didn’t sign up for that.”

Williams said in the interview that he is now on medical leave while he is tested for possible secondhand fentanyl exposure.

But Seattle and King County Public Health social worker Thea Oliphant-Wells is unlikely to be among those concerned about Williams’ health.

He offered amazing quotes about fentanyl abusers last year, and his comments were shared again on the KOMO report on Williams’ plight.

“We don’t want people to be consuming alone in private spaces, we want people to be consuming in a place where, if they overdose, they can be found out and helped through that overdose,” he said. The KOMO report notes that Oliphant-Wells declined an interview about Williams’ allegations that smoking was common on city buses.

“I just know that when we’re sick, we need to be checked on and listened to,” Williams said.

He went on to say that he regularly sees drug users smoking on the bus while sitting next to mothers with young children.

Despite this, “it’s the drug users who take care of themselves first,” Williams added.

Oliphant-Wells, a recovering heroin addict, is quoted in the 2022 report as saying, “It’s important to note that when you see a report on fentanyl, you have to have a critical eye because there’s a lot of misinformation out there.”

In early 2023, King County Medical Examiner’s Office officials said the department was struggling to keep up with the number of incoming bodies as the fentanyl crisis continues and worsens.

‘A key indication of how bad things are at the end of 2022 and likely to get worse [in] 2023, the medical examiner’s office is now wrestling with the body storage issue as the number of fentanyl-related deaths continues to rise,” Seattle-King County Public Health Director Dr. Faisal Khan said recently.

Officials said they are looking at temporary options to counter the finite amount of space available in morgues.

“We have options for temporarily increasing morgue capacity when our census count is high, including storing the deceased on autopsy cots and partnering with funeral homes,” a public health spokesperson said. KTHH.

“We are exploring longer-term options to add more capacity,” they continued.

Khan said he believes many of the recent deaths have been caused by the discreet inclusion of fentanyl in drugs that look like prescription pills. He also said that the drug can be made to look like cocaine or heroin.

“People don’t realize they’re taking fentanyl,” Khan said.

He also added that fentanyl is the “main driver” of overdoses and that the drug is found in “white powder and fake pills, which are flooding the streets.”

In 2022, a record 310 homeless people died in the Seattle area last year, highlighting the region’s struggle to house the thousands living on its streets.

The 310 deaths in King County surpassed the previous record of 195 homeless deaths set in 2018 and marked a 65 percent jump from 2021.

“That’s appalling,” the newspaper quoted Chloe Gale, vice president of policy and strategy at REACH, the largest homeless assistance provider in Seattle, as saying.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell said he underscores the urgent need for his administration to get more people into their homes.

Fentanyl-related overdoses accounted for more than half of the deaths. Many people had a combination of fentanyl and other drugs such as methamphetamine or cocaine in their systems, the newspaper reported, citing records from the King County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Eighteen homeless people died by homicide, a number that has more than doubled since 2021.

Thirty-five people died of natural causes at a much younger age than usual. The median age of death for the homeless was 48, the medical examiner found.

Ten people died from hypothermia or exposure, and seven died by suicide.

The county has directed its public health, human services and homeless agencies to survey homeless providers to find out what is needed to help curb fatal overdoses. The county is also increasing funding for harm reduction efforts.

Last year, Public Health – Seattle & King County distributed more than 10,000 kits of naloxone, a drug that can reverse opioid overdoses, and about 100,000 fentanyl test strips.

The agency is leading public awareness campaigns about the synthetic opioid and helping people find treatment.

Fentanyl has been leading to overdose deaths in the county as a whole, regardless of people’s housing status.

As of November, it was involved in 70% of all confirmed overdose deaths in the county in 2022, according to a recent report from Public Health – Seattle & King County.

Brad Finegood, who leads the agency’s opioid and overdose response, said investigators are still watching the monthly overdose numbers, hoping to see the rates level off.

“Maybe we’re stalling at a really bad rate and maybe it’s going to get worse,” Finegood said. ‘I don’t know when it’s going to stop.’

The point count conducted in the county last year found that 13,368 people lived outside.