Law enforcement, task force warn Lake Winnebago region sees historic number of fentanyl seizures
OSHKOSH ‒ A task force working to investigate drug trafficking in the Fox Valley called fentanyl the number one drug threat in the area during a press conference Thursday after a "dramatic spike" in how much of the drug was seized last year.
Members of the Lake Winnebago Area Metropolitan Enforcement Group, a drug-focused task force made up of 15 law enforcement agencies from Winnebago, Fond du Lac, Outagamie and Calumet counties, said Thursday at the Oshkosh Police Department that the group seized about 6,300 grams of illegal substances containing fentanyl in 2022 across the four counties.
Attorney General Josh Kaul, who also spoke at the press conference, told the Oshkosh Northwestern the task force found the drug by itself as well as being mixed in with other drugs. He said that mixing has made illegal drug use "incredibly dangerous."
"There are people who are overdosing and dying because they are taking fentanyl without even realizing they are," Kaul said.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid similar to morphine but 50 to 100 times more potent which can be lethal in very small doses.
Dean Smith, Chief of the Oshkosh Police Department, said during the press conference officers are working hard to keep down the rise in fentanyl by providing more officers to the task force that works to investigate large scale drug traffickers in the area.
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Wisconsin authorities issued a public warning last August because of an increase in deaths from drugs laced with fentanyl.
In the two-year span from 2019 to 2021, the number of statewide fentanyl deaths increased by 97% — from 680 a year to over 1,200, according to Department of Health Services.
"The law enforcement leaders ... believe that the rise of fentanyl in our communities is a scourge on our citizens," Smith said. "We must do all we can to change this trajectory."
Jeremiah Winscher, the special agent in charge of Lake Winnebago Area Metropolitan Enforcement Group, said the group is committed to preventing the flow of fentanyl by investigations and teamwork.
During 2022, the group estimates it saw a 4,400% increase in substances containing fentanyl compared to 2021, a majority of which came from a December seizure of about 12 pounds of counterfeit prescription pills that contained fentanyl. Excluding that seizure, the group confiscated about 560% more fentanyl in 2022 than 2021.
Winscher said while the main mission is investigating and holding drug traffickers accountable, they also want to warn people about the risks of the drug.
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"It is incumbent upon (law enforcement) to inform the public about this highly addictive and dangerous drug in hopes that raising awareness can assist in preventing harm to the community at large,” he said.
Overdoses have increased across the country, as a New York Times article reported that researchers found more than 100,000 Americans died from overdose deaths in 2020, a 30% increase from the previous year.
That trend has been seen in Wisconsin, where a DHS report in August 2021 found there was a 47% increase in suspected opioid overdoses in the first few months of the pandemic.
In Winnebago County, 41 people died in 2021 because of a drug overdose, while 28 of those drug overdoses had fentanyl as a factor.
Contact Bremen Keasey at 920-570-5614 or bkeasey@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Keasinho.
This article originally appeared on Oshkosh Northwestern: Lake Winnebago region task force warns of 'dramatic spike' in fentanyl
