'We're burying them every week': Tribes call on Inslee to declare opioid emergency
Misty Napeahi has been to hundreds of funerals for people who’ve died from opioid overdoses.
“We’re burying them every week,” Napeahi, the vice chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington, told Gov. Jay Inslee at a meeting between tribal and state governments last week.
Napeahi, alongside other tribal leaders, is calling on Inslee to declare a public health emergency over the opioid crisis, which has devastated the state’s tribes. The tribes started pushing for the declaration earlier this year, the governor’s office told the Standard.
In Washington, American Indian and Alaska Native residents have the highest rate of death from opioid overdoses, far outpacing other races and ethnicities, according to state Department of Health data. Those figures also show fatal overdoses among these groups are up sharply since 2019.
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/were-burying-them-every-week-tribes-call-on-inslee-to-declare-opioid-emergency/