A new bill being considered in the legislature could make fentanyl testing strips legal in the state of Tennessee.
Cumberland County Drug Prevention Coalition Director Bob Valerio said the bill is just another harm reduction tool that can be used to combat the opioid crisis. He said that fentanyl testing strips are illegal currently because of an ongoing stigma with drug use and overdoses.
“There are many people that have the risk of fentanyl that are not drug users or first-time drug users,” Valerio said. “Like law enforcement people or people that work in waste clean up and cleaning services that can get exposed to fentanyl and these things would be very helpful to them.”
Valerio said that the test strips can detect whether fentanyl is present in a substance. He said that you can put a little bit on the strip and it will change color if detected. Valerio said the strip detects the presence of fentanyl, but not the amount.
Valerio said that many view the strips as a way to enable continued drug abuse. Valerio said that instead of worsening the use of drugs, it could save thousands of lives from preventable fentanyl exposure deaths.
“As anybody who works in this field is very well aware, overdoses have spiked dramatically nationwide and the Upper Cumberland has not been spared from that,” Valerio said. “And it’s directly attributed to synthetic opioids like fentanyl that are much more powerful than heroin or morphine, so anything we can do to reduce that is beneficial to the community. We are losing now a second generation of young adults. Most of the people that overdose falls into the age range of about 18 to 35 and we are losing thousands of them every year.”
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