The national ‘One Pill Can Kill’ campaign adds to a suite of state efforts aimed at preventing overdoses from fentanyl and other opioids
With Alaska’s drug overdose deaths surging, state leaders on Monday kicked off a new campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of the drug that caused most of them: fentanyl.
The new campaign, called “One Pill Can Kill,” is national and spearheaded by the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies. But it has special meaning in Alaska, which last year had a record-high total of overdose deaths, they said.
Preliminary numbers show that 342 Alaskans died from overdoses in 2023, a 40% increase over 2022 totals, according to the state Department of Health. Of the total, 264 – about three-quarters – were from fentanyl, up from 151 fentanyl deaths in 2022, according to the department’s preliminary numbers.