DULUTH – Before the pandemic brought a new kind of death to town, fentanyl-laced heroin and meth was wreaking havoc on the city.
The first quarter was one of the deadliest on record — tied with the first three months of last year, said Jess Nickila, the city's opioid technician, who works to get survivors into treatment. "The biggest concern for me is the number of overdoses, and it's wild how many we're having."
Isolation caused by the state's lockdown may be increasing demand for drugs, and the pandemic has done little to slow the supply, which could keep Duluth on track to have its deadliest year yet in terms of overdoses.
"We know trafficking is going on, and there has been an uptick in overdoses," said Duluth police Lt. Jeff Kazel, commander of the Lake Superior Drug and Violent Crime Task Force. "It's an emergency for everybody and we're holding our own and doing what needs to be done."
Cartels and other criminal enterprises have increasingly flooded Duluth with opioids and other drugs in recent years — leading the federal Drug Enforcement Agency to post two agents in Duluth last fall.
Duluth police recently seized 64 grams of cocaine believed to be laced with the very deadly fentanyl. Kazel said the potent opioid is finding its way into heroin and meth and is often to blame for an increase in overdoses when laced shipments come into town.
There have been 90 reported overdoses in Duluth so far this year compared with 174 in all of 2019. As of last week 10 people have died in Duluth from overdoses; 15 died all of last year.
"Every one of those numbers is a human being and a human life," Duluth Police Chief Mike Tusken said earlier this month.