Kansas Highway Patrol warns of the dangers of fentanyl

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — Law enforcement agencies across the midwest are splitting a more than $15 million federal grant to try to keep the fentanyl crisis from getting worse.

The Kansas Highway Patrol gets part of that money. One of their Captains, Dax Lewis, says the money allows their troopers to work overtime if they want to.

“And our job as the Kansas Highway Patrol is to work the highways,” Captain Lewis said Tuesday.

“We’re trying to be the frontline of defense before this poison makes it into these communities and ravages families and leaves families without people at holidays.”

Kansas Democratic Congresswoman Sharice Davids met with the Overland Park Crisis Action Team ( OPCAT ) on Tuesday. She learned more about their co-responder response program. Overland Park Police Department Sergeant Stewart Brought says one of the crises they can respond to is a fentanyl overdose.

“Our co-responders are secondary response in nature,” Sergeant Brought said Tuesday.

“So, we’ve always got to make sure the scene is safe for them. That’s the officer’s primary role.”

Sergeant Brought also said officers will still respond to make sure everything is safe, and then somebody like a mental health clinician will come up to try to help as well. One of the things the police department could have in August as an educational piece is a van they can take to different events.

“So, we’ve got NARCAN in there that’s available as a community resource free of charge,” Sergeant Brought continued.

“We’ve also got a video on the front explaining how to appropriately distribute it and how to actually use it should the crisis arise where somebody needs to. We’ve got gunlocks in there. We also have lock boxes that can be used for anything, whether that’s sharps, whether that’s keys. My officers have gotten really creative on anything that they can put in there, and the same thing with the gun locks. You know, a lot of times, they’re actually not used for guns. It may be that somebody’s in a crisis mode where they’re having that impulsivity, so we can put things into a cabinet and use that to lock it up.”

Captain Lewis says children and teenagers should not be taking any medications that are not prescribed to them.

“That’s really where the dangers of fentanyl have really shown its head because not everybody knows they’re getting fentanyl,” Captain Lewis said.

“They may think they’re buying some OxyContin off the street, and in fact it’s counterfeit, and it’s laced with fentanyl, and it is killing them.”

The grant money originally goes to the Midwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area ( HIDTA ). It’s then disbursed to agencies like the Kansas Highway Patrol.

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