Portland Declares Emergency Over Fentanyl Crisis Three Years After Decriminalizing Drug Possession
The idiots running Portland, Oregon have declared a 90-day state of emergency over an ongoing fentanyl crisis, just three years after decriminalizing possession of all drugs.
State, County and City officials declared the ‘tri-government’ fentanyl emergency following recommendations by the governor-established Portland Central City Task Force late last year. As part of the response, the city, state and county will work together to ‘tackle the crisis’ (sure!), which will include the establishment of a “command center” in the central city to coordinate efforts and “refocus existing resources.”
Fentanyl addicts who interact with first responders in downtown Portland over the next 90 days will be triaged in this new command center.
“Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,” said Gov. Tina Kotek (D).
According to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, “We cannot underestimate the tremendous value of bringing leaders from different disciplines in a room on a daily basis who all account for a different part of the solution.”
Mike Meyers, director of Portland’s Community Safety Division will head up the command team, while deputy police chief Nathan Reynolds of the state’s Office of Resilience and Emergency Management will be the state’s incident commander.
Portland Police will also work with Oregon State Police to jointly patrol downtown streets for fentanyl sales.
As the Epoch Times notes further, the emergency declarations do not provide extra funding for the joint actions, and government agencies will instead rearrange current budgets to cover the costs.
Fentanyl Overdoses Rise
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine, was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat acute pain. As little as two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal. It is also extremely addictive.
According to U.S. officials, an increasing number of Mexican cartels have been importing fentanyl from China before pressing it into pills or mixing it into other counterfeit pills made to look like Xanax, Adderall, or oxycodone. The drugs are then sold to unaware buyers in the United States
Announcing the tri-government actions, Ms. Kotek noted the ongoing opioid is impacting not just the state but the entire nation, with the deadly synthetic drug fentanyl leading to the deaths of thousands of Americans each year.
From 2016 to 2021, drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl more than tripled across the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In Oregon, health officials saw a 74 percent surge in fentanyl-related deaths from 2019 to 2020, according to the Oregon Department of Education.
“Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly and addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,” Ms. Kotek said. “The Chair, the Mayor and I recognize the need to act with urgency and unity across our public health and community safety systems to make a dent in this crisis. We are all in this together.”
Ms. Kotek added that the next 90 days will “yield unprecedented collaboration and focused resources targeting fentanyl and provide a roadmap for the next steps.”
Elsewhere, Portland Mayor Wheeler said the joint emergency declarations are “exactly the type of coordinated action needed to make a direct impact and a lasting difference.”
The joint emergency declarations come after U.S. and Chinese officials resumed talks in Beijing on Tuesday regarding how to counter the ongoing illicit trafficking of fentanyl.
The discussions come more than a year after they were put on hold amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing in the wake of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Wang Xiaohong, China’s public security minister, said his deputy—who attended the closed-door talks with U.S. officials earlier in the day— had reached a “common understanding on the work plan” with officials and hopes the two delegations could “enhance and expand cooperation to provide more positive energy for stable, sound and sustainable China-U.S. relations.”
Senior U.S. officials from the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, State, and Treasury participated in Tuesday’s talks. U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns was also in attendance.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Former Ukrainian Ambassador Warns Country Being Sold Off to Deep State
Earlier this week, Ukraine’s security service announced that five Ukrainians, including the current head of a department in Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, had been served with notices of suspicion related to the embezzlement of nearly $40 million that was supposed to be spent on artillery shells.
The news was the latest in a consistent pattern of fraud and corruption being reported in Ukraine since Russia’s special military operation began nearly two years ago. Former Ukrainian ambassador and whistleblower Andrii Telizhenko told Sputnik’s Fault Lines that corruption is rife in Kiev and is only getting worse.
“So this whole scheme of $40 million is just a small little example,” Telizhenko explained. “Ukraine became a failed state,” Telizhenko said, “because of the corruption and because Ukraine was sold off to the people inside Ukraine, was sold off to its Western allies, and people in Ukraine are suffering from this.”
Telizhenko noted that despite all the aid that has been sent to Ukraine, which he estimated to be over $200 billion, the army itself is woefully ill-equipped for battle. “People are still collecting money to buy medical kits and drones for the soldiers,” Telizhenko said. “[This is] what is happening in Ukraine, total corruption.”
Telizhenko noted that there was another case in which more than $1 billion worth of military equipment that the US Department of Defense authorized to be sent to Ukraine never arrived and the DoD was unable to locate them. “So this is a great example where equipment is being lost for billions of dollars, equipment is not being made for hundreds of millions of dollars, and it’s all being stolen by the Kiev regime, and I think, with the help of the deep state government in Washington.”
The actions by Ukrainian authorities to arrest those involved in the motor scandal are token gestures, says Telizhenko, “It’s all a big show.”
The corruption in Ukraine has always been there but grew exponentially after the West began meddling in Ukrainian affairs, he explained.
“Corruption, which was inside Ukraine, which [already] was pretty big, but then it came from the outside, from people like [US President Joe] Biden in Washington, the deep state, which said, ‘Oh, why [don’t] we also make money on this together with the Ukrainian politicians?’” Telizhenko blasted the Ukrainian officials calling them “hypocrites” and “so-called patriots.”
The corruption is so entrenched, Telizhenko said, that it will take more than the removal of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to root it out.“
It [is] coming to a situation where a change of government in Washington, DC, a change of national policy issues in Washington, people like [Former US President Donald] Trump [could] come in,” Telizhenko explained. “He spoke about making peace in 24 hours, that’s a possibility.”
“The end game… for Ukraine is to have a new government inside Ukraine and to see what government comes from Washington, maybe that will give some stability in the world,” he concluded.
Alex Jones: We’ve Moved Beyond The Crossroads, It’s Time To Choose A Side
US Patriot Missile Downed Russian Transport Plane Which Killed 74: Putin
President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that a Russian investigation into the shoot down of an Il-76 military transport plane which crashed close to the Ukrainian border last week has been concluded.
He pointed the finger at Washington and its supplying advanced weapons to Kiev in the remarks by saying it was a US Patriot missile that downed the flight. “It’s been definitively established that the plane was shot down by an American Patriot air defense system,” Putin said during a campaign event for his reelection.
And after Moscow has raised the issue before the United Nations Security Council, Putin said that Moscow “insists” there be an international investigation into the incident.
Shortly after it happened, merely within hours of the large transport airplane downing, the Kremlin had claimed 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war had been aboard. Thus it accused Kiev forces of killing their own. In total 74 people including crew were reported killed.
Ukrainian officials strongly hinted their forces were behind it, but stopped short of outright taking responsibility.
The Kharkiv and Belgorod regions in particular have for months witnessed a huge uptick in aggressive Ukrainian military cross-border action, which has included use of missiles, mortars, and drones.
Earlier this month, Ukraine and Russia exchanged nearly 500 prisoners, marking largest single swap since the early days of the war. This has driven speculation that the 65 POWs being transported on the downed Il-76 were possibly being prepared for another impending prisoner swap.
There have also recently been reports Western allies have secretly met with Ukraine on a peace plan with Russia as the US presidential election cycle gears up.
The Russian Investigative Committee released footage of Ukrainian prisoners of war boarding an Il-76 plane that crashed in the Belgorod region as a result of a terrorist attack. pic.twitter.com/YJx0WxZp8V
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) January 26, 2024
A number of recent major mainstream US press reports have said Putin is more “open” than ever to the prospect of winding down the war, and reaching a peaceful settlement. But this would require Ukraine to cede territory, which so far Zelensky has been steadfast in refusing to do.
Meanwhile this latest major incident shows the great powers continue inching toward direct clash, after the Ukraine conflict has already long been acknowledged as a proxy war. If it is true that a Patriot missile was used to shoot down the Russian plane, it violates Putin’s previously stated ‘red line’ on foreign-supplied weaponry.
Alex Jones: We’ve Moved Beyond The Crossroads, It’s Time To Choose A Side
WATCH: Grok Exposes Globalist Plot To Destabilize America
Alex Jones breaks down what it means for the Liberty Movement now that artificial intelligence can create a simple essay that details how globalists use chaos to gain control over nations.
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John Podesta, Whose Friend Was Caught Raping Babies, Named As Biden’s New Climate Czar
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