DO YOU SUPPORT DISTRIBUTING FOIL TO FENTANYL SMOKERS? In the hours before a reversal, we asked Multnomah County officials to take a position.

BY LUCAS MANFIELD lmanfield@wweek.com

It took only 75 hours for Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson to order the county to reverse course after WW reported Friday that health officials were set to begin distributing tinfoil and straws to fentanyl smokers.

“Our health department went forward with this proposal without proper implementation protocols,” she told WW on July 10.

It’s still not clear when Pederson learned of the initiative. The county’s top public health official, Jessica Guernsey, briefed the board in May on plans to distribute “smoking supplies,” in an effort to convince drug users to switch to a safer method of consuming opioids like heroin and fentanyl. At the center of the county’s strategy was the hope that drawing fentanyl users in the door with free straws and foil could start relationships that would lead to those clients seeking drug treatment.

But after WW reported July 7 that the supplies included the tinfoil and straws already