Portland is really suffering from the fentanyl crisis. According to new data, overdose deaths are up nearly 50% so far this year compared to last year.

Last year, there were a record 158 overdose deaths in Portland. This year will almost certainly surpass that peak. There have already been 85, a 46% increase from this time last year, PPB spokesman Nathan Shephard tells WW.

“Keep in mind that the numbers for this year are actually only preliminary because the Medical Examiner will continue to process toxicology reports that will only increase the number of deaths considered overdoses,” he added.

The new data was released today after a deadly weekend in which 8 people in various parts of the city died from suspected fentanyl overdoses. Two of the deaths happened last Friday. There were five more deaths Saturday and one on Sunday. Police believe the victims bought street drugs which they believed was cocaine but which was actually fentanyl.

Authorities are worried that a potentially dangerous batch of drugs is making rounds on the streets after eight people died between Friday morning and Sunday afternoon from suspected drug overdoses across the city…

The Medical Examiner’s office and the Portland Police Bureau’s Narcotics and Organized Crime Unit (NOC) are investigating all of the cases and investigators said there is a concerning pattern.

“NOC has found that in several of these cases, there is evidence that the user believed they were ingesting cocaine, but that it was really a blend of cocaine and fentanyl, or possibly pure powdered fentanyl,” Portland police said…

Two years ago Portland legalized small amounts of drugs for personal use. Since then the city has been struggling with a steep rise in overdose deaths. KOMO News reports that some city residents have had enough and are leaving. Erica Hetfeld is a third generation Portlander.

“There are two types of people in Portland, someone who’s had something happen to them and someone who will have something happen to them,” Hetfeld said. “There is no in-between.”

Hetfeld said she falls into the former after the thief stole family heirlooms, jewelry, money from her kid’s piggy bank and even went through a medicine closet. She moved her family to the suburbs and makes a direct connection between the break-in and the city’s addiction and public safety problems.

“You get more trouble in Portland for parking in a handicapped spot than you do having a baggie full of fentanyl that could kill a busload of kids. That’s wrong,” said Hetfeld…

“If you’re a drug addict on the streets of Portland, and you get free food, free housing, free water, free needles, and have $2 fentanyl, why would you put yourself into treatment if you don’t have to go?” posed Hetfeld.

Even Mayor Ted Wheeler thinks Measure 110, which legalized small amounts of drugs for personal use, hasn’t worked out well. In his view decriminalization was supposed to be matched with addiction treatment but the latter hasn’t really happened.

CBC News did a report on Measure 110 in February. British Columbia began a similar decriminalization pilot program in January.