The ongoing opioid addiction crisis began with excessive distribution of a new generation of effective opioid painkillers, such as OxyContin.

But with new prescribing protocols and comprehensive prescription-tracking by physicians and pharmacies, the overwhelming driver of the carnage is the exponentially more powerful synthetic opioid, fentanyl.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, synthetic opioids — mostly fentanyl — are responsible for 72.9% of all fatal opioid overdoses. The problem is not drug users going out to get a hit of fentanyl. Rather, drug producers and traffickers increasingly lace other drugs with fentanyl — heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines and even marijuana — to increase their potency and addictive properties.

Even experienced users can’t accurately measure doses because they do not know whether or how much fentanyl is present.

Inexpensive technology is available to detect fentanyl, in the form of test strips that change color when they come into contact with the drug. But under state law, it is illegal to possess those strips, which are considered drug paraphernalia because they can be used to facilitate drug production and distribution.

Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti is on the mark in moving to decriminalize fentanyl test strips in the city, with the support of Lackawanna County District Attorney Mark Powell, who said Wednesday that 92% of the county’s fatal overdoses this year involved fentanyl, either directly or within other drugs.

The mayors of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have decriminalized the test strips by executive order, but Cognetti will submit legislation to city council this month.

Decriminalizing and distributing fentanyl strips will not reduce addiction — and the measure is surely controversial in some parts of Pennsylvania. But the measures would be a sensible step toward reducing the opioid death toll as the government struggles to increase access to treatment and to fight fentanyl distribution.

— Scranton Times-Tribune