Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said on Wednesday that only compassion can reverse the state’s drug use and homelessness emergencies — but not the kind that has made these problems worse over the past decade.

“We fall into this compassion trap that is not compassionate at all,” Cox said. “It’s a compassion that kills.”

Last year, Utah was one of only five states that saw a jump in overdose deaths, recording its highest number of overdoses ever.

The fatalities follow from a steady increase in drug trafficking in the state.

Fentanyl seized by law enforcement spiked in Utah from 50,000 doses in 2020 to 4.7 million in 2024.

On Tuesday, federal authorities announced a record-breaking operation in five states including Utah that confiscated three million fentanyl pills.

Fentanyl pouring into the state has been accompanied by a jump in chronic homelessness which nearly doubled between 2019 and 2023.

According to Cox, for too long policymakers have neglected half of the solution: accountability that leads to treatment.

Speaking at the Solutions Utah annual conference in Salt Lake City, Cox called for a view of compassion that prioritizes recovery with the goal of enhancing public safety.

Cox was joined by Sam Quinones, the New York Times best-selling author of “The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth.”

The two agreed that a new generation of ultra-psychoactive, ultra-plentiful and ultra-potent drugs demands a reimagining of what police and prison time are for.

“Law enforcement has a central role of getting people off the street,” Quinones said. “You need to rethink jail into a place of recovery, but then, of course, also connected with places once that person is released.”

The state’s broader criminal justice and public health systems need a major overhaul to accommodate longer detox detentions and more cohesive communication between service providers, Cox said.

How to “reclaim” Utah’s capital city

New Salt Lake City police chief Brian Redd told the room of over 300 community activists, lawmakers and state agency heads that they share the goal of making the city safer and helping individuals who are experiencing homelessness.

Redd cited multiple experiences he said showed that new synthetic drugs can remove individuals’ capacity to reason and often require mandatory treatment.

Victor Siebeneck, Redd’s deputy chief overseeing investigations, told the Deseret News that increased enforcement actions have made significant changes in high-crime areas like the Jordan River Trail and public parks since Redd was sworn in two months ago.

The governor noted these changes and said anyone who claims that strict law enforcement must come at the expense of compassion is presenting a “false choice.”

“I refuse to believe that we have to allow our capital city to be a place where families can’t go to our parks together and where we just let people die on the streets,” Cox said. “We cease to function as a society if we’re going to accept that.”

The alternative means more arrests, Cox said; drug use, and its frequent corollary, homelessness, won’t decrease unless more “friction” is created to deter them.

But it can’t stop there. Reform must also mean more resources focused on sobriety, long-term care and reintegration, Cox said.

Ken Curtis, whose son died of an overdose on the streets of Salt Lake City last year, told the Deseret News that local law enforcement refused to detain his son or enforce court orders, making it impossible to get him clean.

In addition to taking a more hands on approach, the state must also ensure that the public safety-public health “system” functions as a system, according to Curtis.

“There was never anybody crossing intelligence,” Curtis said. “The police wouldn’t talk to medical, medical wouldn’t talk to mental health.”

Will sports betting increase homelessness?

Ultimately, states must take a harder look at the factors causing and perpetuating homelessness, Cox and Quinones said, which includes the supply of fentanyl and what Cox called “fentanyl in phone form.”

“I‘m just telling you right now, we’re going to have a lot of homeless people because of DraftKings,” Cox said. “Gambling apps are going to destroy our country.”

Since the federal legalization of sports betting seven years ago, the industry has grown to $13.7 billion in revenue even as it produces measurable harm to mental health, personal wealth and family relationships, as the Deseret News previously reported.

A Kellogg Insight report released in December found that households involved in sports gambling spent an average of $1,100 each year on online bets. Sports betting remains illegal in Utah.

But sports betting and substance abuse are just symptoms of a much larger trend that points to a “God-shaped hole in our hearts,” Cox said.

Utah’s governor believes that now is the time for leaders to promote a vision of American values that extends beyond “cheap dopamine” and “freedom to do anything we want.”

And if there’s anywhere this shift in policy and public opinion can take hold, it’s here, he said, pointing to the Beehive State’s No. 1 rankings in volunteerism, charitable giving and religious activity.

“If it can be done anywhere in this country, anywhere in this world, it is right here in Utah,” Cox said. “We have all the ingredients we need to do this the right way.”