TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas — A State dashboard shows Travis County has had the most fentanyl-related deaths in Texas so far this year.
Preliminary data for 2023 shows Travis County has had a little more than five fentanyl-related deaths per 100,000 people.
The Texas Health Fentanyl Trends dashboard shows that no other county comes close to that number. Dallas County is the closest, with 2.53 deaths per 100,000 people.
Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has called it the deadliest drug threat the nation is facing.
Travis County declared fentanyl-related overdoses a public health crisis last year. The County has set aside more than $800,000 for overdose prevention.
Meanwhile, at the state level, Gov. Greg Abbott signed four fentanyl prevention-related bills this year. One recognizes October as "Fentanyl Poisoning Awareness Month"; another requires schools to educate students on fentanyl abuse prevention; another allows the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to partner with college campuses to distribute Narcan; and the fourth one makes it clear that people who cause death by distributing fentanyl can be prosecuted for murder.
Last year, almost 1,700 Texans died from fentanyl-elated overdoses.
The Texas Department of State Health Services reported 206 such overdoses in Travis County, 31 in Williamson County and 14 in Hays County in 2022.
DSHS data showed that those numbers have been increasing in all three counties in recent years. In 2020 and 2021, Hays County had less than 10 such overdoses; Travis County had 44 in 2020 and 123 in 2022; and Williamson County had less than 10 in 2020 and 28 in 2021. DSHS doesn't include raw numbers for any amount less than 10.