Oregon Governor and local leaders declare 90-day fentanyl state of emergencies for downtown Portland

Oregon leaders joined forces to declare a 90-day state of emergency in downtown Portland, funneling resources into fighting the city’s deadly fentanyl crisis.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler each made an emergency declaration to address the public health and public safety crisis in Portland’s Central City, citing overdoses, deaths and fear driven by fentanyl use, according to a Tuesday press release.

“Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly and addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,” Kotek said in the release.

Oregon voters passed Measure 110 in 2020, which decriminalized some use of hard-drugs, including fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid. The measure has received criticism, as opioid overdose deaths steadily climbed since.

Opioid overdose deaths in the state increased from 280 in 2019 to 956 in 2022, according to the state’s data.

Nearly 70,000 people in the US died of drug overdoses that involved fentanyl in 2021, almost a four-fold increase over five years, according to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released last spring. Fentanyl is significantly more likely to be involved in a deadly overdose than other common drugs, according to the CDC.