The number of people dying in Orange County from fentanyl had its sharpest drop since the crisis with that opioid began about a decade ago, mirroring a regional trend, statistics from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department show.
The 407 deaths in 2024 was a 34% drop from the year before — and 43% less than the worst year, 2021 — when fentanyl killed 717.
“Fentanyl is impacting everybody equally,” Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said in an interview with the Southern California News Group. “Socioeconomic status doesn’t matter. Race doesn’t matter.
“It just doesn’t pick,” he said. “It goes and just gets everybody equally.”
Sometimes, people don’t know they are taking fentanyl.
Pills can be stamped to make them look like Xanax or OxyContin, the sheriff said, “(but) there’s no pharmaceutical quality in that pill. It’s 100% fentanyl.”
County officials credit a strong partnership between the Sheriff’s Department and the Orange County Healthcare Agency with helping to reduce fentanyl deaths through education, town hall meetings and encouraging sobriety over incarceration.
The health agency has targeted homeless populations for education — including how to administer Narcan, a nasal spray that can rapidly reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, said its director, Veronica Kelley. The agency has also started using Kloxxado, which delivers double the amount of naloxone per dose.
“We have outreach and engagement teams that carpet the county and get to know people who are living out there,” she said.
Both agencies also run Above the Influence, a six-week program for fifth and six graders on the dangers of addictive substances and how poor choices early in life can lead to a long-term struggle with addiction.
“We have to stop adding new addicts to the roster,” the sheriff said. “That’s how we’re going to win this long term.
“There’s supply and demand,” he said. “If we take the demand side out, which means not having more addicts or getting that number reduced, the supply naturally wanes because there’s nobody to feed it to.”
The passage of Proposition 36, a tougher-on-crime law that placed stricter punishments on repeat drug and theft offenders, has given both agencies more opportunities to try to help those in custody suffering from drug addiction.
“We saturate them with service offerings,” Barnes said. “When people are in our care and they’re leaving us, we can sign them up for Cal Optima in Orange County, or Medi-Cal services.
“So when they walk out the back door, they’re already connected back to health care to hopefully go and continue their options rather than walking out without anything.”
Said Kelley, “We are assisting there so that we can get everyone the (medicated-assisted treatment) they need. And then when everyone leaves, we give them an overdose-prevention kit.”
Since 2017, the Sheriff’s Department has sent out homicide investigators to every overdose death, Barnes said. They try to get the evidence necessary to track back to the narcotics dealer, who could be charged with second-degree murder if evidence exists that they knew they were selling fentanyl and it led to a user’s death.
In Los Angeles County, such prosecutions have been key in bringing down overdose deaths, L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said. In 2024, fentanyl deaths there declined 37% to 1,263.
“If we take our eye off the ball, those numbers can very easily reverse,” Los Angeles Police Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said.
Hochman equated the dealers, “fentanyl poisoners,” to a silent assassin using a rife to pick off people on the 405 Freeway.
“I would venture to say we would stop a whole lot of stuff we were doing until we found that one sniper,” he said.
Authorities urged diligence, especially for parents with their children.
“If we take our eye off the ball, those numbers can very easily reverse,” Los Angeles police Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said.
Barnes, Orange County’s sheriff, called on parents to “get uncomfortable” — have difficult conversations with their children and keep tabs on their belongings.
“You’ve got to get uncomfortable and have the difficult conversations,” Barnes said, “because the one thing I don’t want to hear … is a parent looking at me and saying a very simple sentence: ‘If I only knew. If I only knew what my kid was doing in the room. If I only knew it was in their backpack, I would have done parenting differently.’ ”
Sierra van der Brug contributed to this report.
Orange County fentanyl deaths by year
2024 407
2023 613
2022 676
2021 717
2020 433
2019 147
2018 107
2017 56
2016 37
2015 20