New overdose task force in Utah launched, DEA claims it’s a success

SALT LAKE CITY — A new task force to get tough on those involved in overdose deaths just launched here in Utah, and the Drug Enforcement Administration said so far, it’s a success.

But one public health advocate who works with addicts gets help and said the task force will result in more overdose deaths, not fewer.

“I know what it feels like to lose somebody and want there to be someone to pay for something to make it better,” Dr. Jen Plumb said. “Some sort of consequence that would make it seem somehow alright that we lost him.”

Back in 1996, Plumb lost her brother, Andy, to addiction.  Stopping addiction is personal for her, and she says this new task force concerns her.

“When we talk about increasing responses in an overdose in kind of a criminalized fashion, that’s the thing I’m most worried about,” Plumb said.

She said the approach to allow law enforcement to hold more people accountable in an overdose death will result in fewer calls for help.

“You’re going to discourage people from calling for that response,” Plumb said.

“It is the deadliest drug that we’ve ever seen in the history of our country,” said Dustin Gillespie with the DEA in Salt Lake City. He said the goal of the Utah Drug Overdose Task Force is to crack down on big-time criminals.

“We’re looking for serious, serious offenders. the worst of the worst,” he said. Gillespie is looking for people like Colin Shapard, the dealer sentenced earlier this month for selling fentanyl to an 18-year-old who almost died.

According to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah, the DEA states that fentanyl has saturated the drug market in Utah. “It is cheaper, more potent, and more widely available than ever before,” the office said.

It said he’s the same dealer who gave two Park City teens drugs in 2016. Those teens died.

“We’re looking for the distributor who shows a callous disregard for the city, is looking to target youth.”

Gillespie said that’s what Shapard is.

He said the task force is meant to establish better training for agencies processing scenes where someone died from a drug overdose.

“There’s a balance between holding people accountable, providing justice for those families, and allowing the public the opportunity to feel like they can come to us because, without an investigation, we can’t provide justice,” Gillespie said.

“Making everything illegal, busting everybody has unintended consequences in the world that i work in,” Plumb said. She said consequences like this mean more addicts will die. “Personally, I can’t sleep at night with that thought.”