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Tag: overdose deaths

  • Parents Of Opioid Epidemic Named Citizens Of The Year

    Parents Of Opioid Epidemic Named Citizens Of The Year

    A New Hampshire paper has named the “parents of the addiction crisis” as the citizens of the year for 2018.

    In New Hampshire last year, 437 people died of drug overdoses, a significant number in the small state. Many of them were young adults who left behind parents who were unable to save them, despite their best intentions.

    Now, a New Hampshire paper has named the “parents of the addiction crisis” as the citizens of the year for 2018.

    “The selection honors parents who have lost children to overdoses — and others whose loved ones have found recovery — but who are striving to help other families find hope and healing,” Shawne K. Wickham wrote in a piece for The New Hampshire Union Leader explaining the selection. “Most do that work quietly, out of public view. They run support groups and volunteer at recovery centers. They raise their grandchildren, postponing retirement in favor of parenting a second time around. Others have shared their stories publicly, reaching out in hopes of sparing other families their grief.”

    After Susan Messinger’s son died of a fentanyl overdose in 2014, Messinger and her husband John (who passed away suddenly last fall) threw themselves into advocacy and awareness in hopes that other parents would never need to experience a loss like theirs.

    “It may look like we’re OK; you see us in the grocery store, Walmart, wherever. We’re there, we’re putting one foot in front of the other; we may have a smile on our face that day or we may look sad,” Messinger said. “But our heart is broken inside and it’s never, ever, ever going to be together again.”

    Jim and Anne Marie Zanfagna lost their daughter to an opioid overdose in the fall. Anne Marie has since painted 180 pictures of people who have died from drug overdoses.

    She calls the series “Angels of Addictions.” It has now been displayed around the state and led the Zanfagnas to found a nonprofit by the same name to raise awareness and cut stigma. They want to encourage other people to be open about addiction. 

    “Speak about this,” said Jim Zanfagna. “Let people know what’s going on. Maybe we can save some lives.”

    Charles “Chucky” Rosa has been speaking out since his two sons died of drug overdoses more than 10 years ago. Recently he has seen more and more parents doing the same. 

    “I used to be the only member of the club that nobody wants to be part of,” he said. “Now there’s so many people that have lost children.”

    Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) said that New Hampshire parents have shown resiliency in the face of crisis.

    “So many families have courageously shared their experience of losing a loved one, which has been instrumental in destigmatizing substance use disorders and raising awareness of the magnitude of this crisis,” she said. “I deeply appreciate their advocacy and will continue to work with them to end this scourge on our state and our country.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Can A Google Search Predict An Overdose?

    Can A Google Search Predict An Overdose?

    Researchers examined whether Internet search data from Google could help them predict where an overdose will occur.

    Technology has no doubt played a role in the opioid epidemic, with drug users and dealers able to order narcotics online and have them delivered directly to their homes. Now a new study suggests that the internet could also play an important role in alleviating the crisis by helping to predict opioid overdoses. 

    The study, titled “Internet searches for opioids predict future emergency department heroin admissions,” was published in the September issue of the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence and reported in Scientific American last week. 

    Sean D. Young, a researcher at the University of California Institute for Prediction Technology, led a team that analyzed Google search prevalence of opioid-related terms, including “Avinza,” “Brown Sugar,” “China White,” “Codeine,” “Kadian,” “Methadone,” and “Oxymorphone.”

    The researchers compared that data to heroin-related emergency room visits in nine different areas around the US over the following year. They found that in the best model, search data could explain 72% of the variance in emergency department visits. Overall, the more a keyword was searched, the more opioid-related hospitalizations were likely to happen in that region in the next year. 

    “Internet search-based modeling should be explored as a new source of insights for predicting heroin-related admissions,” the study authors wrote. 

    Internet search data could be particularly important in areas where there is little information on the drug epidemic. Analyzing the data is a cost-effective way of predicting how opioid abuse might change in the upcoming year, they said. 

    “In geographic regions where no current heroin-related data exist, Internet search modeling might be a particularly valuable and inexpensive tool for estimating changing heroin use trends,” the authors wrote. “We discuss the immediate implications for using this approach to assist in managing opioid-related morbidity and mortality in the United States.”

    Researchers said this tool could be important for helping to understand and prevent overdose deaths. For example, in areas expecting to see an increase in drug-related hospital visits, community organizations could distribute more doses of naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug. 

    “For a number of fiscal and practical reasons, data on heroin use have been of poor quality, which has hampered the ability to halt the growing epidemic,” the researchers wrote. “Internet search data, such as those made available by Google Trends, have been used as a low-cost, real-time data source for monitoring and predicting a variety of public health outcomes.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Fentanyl Officially The Deadliest Drug In America

    Fentanyl Officially The Deadliest Drug In America

    According to a new report, fentanyl is responsible for more US deaths than any other drug.

    Fentanyl has become the most deadly drug in the nation, involved in more overdose deaths than any other illicit substance, according to a new report. 

    According to the National Center for Health Statistics’ “Drugs Most Frequently Involved in Drug Overdose Deaths: United States, 2011–2016” report, fentanyl was involved in 18,335 overdose deaths last year, far surpassing heroin, the second most deadly drug, which was involved in 15,961 deaths.

    Overall, fentanyl was present in 28.8% of overdose deaths in 2016, the report found. 

    Often, fentanyl was present alongside other drugs, including opioids and cocaine. The prevalence of fentanyl in the opioid supply and now the cocaine supply across the country is striking fear into health care workers and drug users alike, since the powerful synthetic opioid can cause an overdose in tiny amounts. In 69% of the deaths that involved fentanyl, another drug was also found, according to the report. 

    “We’ve had a tendency to think of these drugs in isolation. It’s not really what’s happening,” Dr. Holly Hedegaard, lead author of the report and injury epidemiologist at the National Center for Health Statistics told The Huffington Post.

    Oftentimes, drug users don’t even know they’re being exposed to the drug. This can be particularly problematic for people who don’t typically use opioids and therefore don’t have a tolerance built up. That can leave them more vulnerable to overdose, but participants in one Rhode Island survey said the drug is nearly impossible to avoid.  

    “It’s like you notice that there’s fentanyl and it’s not the drug you’re going for. It’s like, what’s the point, unless you have a little lab kit or something. That’s the only way you can tell,” a user said.  

    “I don’t think you can avoid it now,” another user said.

    The government report examined overdoses between 2011 and 2016 by looking at the data on death certificates to see which drugs were present in the most deaths. In 2011, fentanyl was the 10th most deadly drug in the country, present in just 1,662 deaths. In 2012 and 2013 it was the ninth most deadly, before moving to the fifth spot in 2014, when it was involved in 4,223 deaths.

    By 2015 it was the second most deadly drug, involved in 8,251 deaths, before its impact grew massively in 2016. 

    “Fentanyl is so deadly, in the geographic regions where it’s been flooding in, deaths soared like we’ve never seen before,” Dr. Andrew Kolodny, co-founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, told CNN.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Drug-Related Deaths Plunge In Ohio: How They Did It

    Drug-Related Deaths Plunge In Ohio: How They Did It

    The fading presence of carfentanil may have played a major role in the decline of drug-related deaths in some parts of Ohio.

    Overdose deaths in Montgomery County—in Dayton, Ohio—have dramatically decreased in 2018. The county has seen an incredible 54% decline in overdose deaths: there were 548 by November 30 last year; this year there have been 250.

    Dayton is an economically-challenged city, deserted of jobs after manufacturers left in droves. Some speculate that this is part of the reason why Dayton had the highest opioid overdose death rates in the nation in 2017.

    The overdose deaths were so rapid and unrelenting that according to Wral.com, the coroner’s office continuously ran out of space, and ended up renting refrigerated trailers. So what has changed?

    The New York Times did extensive research and reporting on the ground to look into the positive changes in Dayton. Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley believes the largest impact on the rate of overdose deaths came from Gov. John Kasich’s decision to expand Medicaid in 2015. This expansion allowed almost 700,000 low-income adults access to free addiction and mental health treatment.

    In addition to the treatments being free for low-income residents, the expansion of Medicaid pulled in more than a dozen new treatment providers within a year. Some of these providers are residential programs and outpatient clinics that utilize methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone for their patients. These are the three FDA-approved medications to treat opioid addiction.

    “It’s the basis — the basis — for everything we’ve built regarding treatment,” NYT reported Mayor Whaley said at City Hall. “If you’re a state that does not have Medicaid expansion, you can’t build a system for addressing this disease.”

    Dayton’s East Held holds a bimonthly event called Conversations for Change, which lays out the available addiction treatment options. Food is served, and anyone attending can meet treatment providers. The New York Times reported the evening they attended there were more than a dozen tables of providers.

    Significant to a large degree is the fading presence on the streets of Dayton of carfentanil, an analog of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. Carfentanil is described by the CDC as 10,000 times more powerful than morphine.

    In recent years carfentanil was very present in Ohio street drugs, for unknown reasons. Mid-2017 carfentanil’s hold began to loosen, possibly because drug traffickers realized they were losing money due to the large upsurge in overdose deaths, said Timothy Plancon, a DEA special agent in charge of Ohio.

    A crucial decision was made by Richard Biehl, Dayton police chief, in 2014. Chief Biehl ordered all officers to carry naloxone, directly contrary to some of his peers in other Ohio cities. Naloxone, or Narcan, is the well-known medication that reverses opioid overdoses if administered in a timely manner.

    Police in Ohio and others elsewhere oppose harm reduction tools like naloxone due to a belief that they simply enable drug use. Still, the evidence is overwhelming that they save lives.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • One Washington County Is Treating The Opioid Crisis As A Natural Disaster

    One Washington County Is Treating The Opioid Crisis As A Natural Disaster

    What if the government used the natural disaster coordinated system to mitigate the opioid epidemic?

    In Snohomish County in Western Washington, officials are taking a unique approach to the opioid crisis by declaring it a life-threatening emergency, as if it were a natural disaster.

    As overdose deaths are threatening more lives than hurricanes and mud slides, they say it makes practical sense. Ty Trenary, former police chief in Snohomish County, thought that his rural community was not affected by the drug crisis.

    Trenary told NPR that at the time he thought, “This is Stanwood, and heroin is in big cities with homeless populations. It’s not in rural America.”

    A new poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health showed the truth: 48% of people said opioid addiction in their communities has worsened over the past five years.

    After Chief Trenary toured the local jails, he realized the problem was enormous. He witnessed over half of the jail inmates withdrawing from heroin or other opioid drugs.

    “It took becoming the sheriff to see the impacts inside the jail with heroin abuse, to see the impacts in the community across the entire county for me to realize that we had to change a lot about what we were doing,” Trenary told NPR.

    The idea to go the natural disaster route was the brainchild of Shari Ireton, the director of communications for the sheriff’s office. In 2014, a massive landslide in Washington killed 43 people. As the communications director, Ireton was in charge of organizing the press for field trips to the worst areas of landslide damage.

    “It was amazing to see Black Hawk helicopters flying with our helicopter and a fixed wing over the top of that,” she told NPR. “All in coordination with each other, all with the same objective, which is life safety.”

    Ireton had a moment of inspiration: what if the government used the natural disaster coordinated system with everyone working together, across government agencies, to treat the opioid epidemic?

    The county loved the idea, and a group was formed called the Multi-Agency Coordination group, or MAC group. The group follows FEMA’s emergency response playbook and is run out of a special emergency operations center.

    MAC includes seven overarching goals, which include reducing opioid misuse and reducing damage to the community. The goals are dissembled to smaller, workable steps, such as distributing needle cleanup kits and training schoolteachers to recognize trauma and addiction.

    MAC is too new to understand the scope of the group’s impact on the community just yet. Those being helped will surely feel that it is a positive direction for Washington and for addiction treatment.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Global War On Drugs Is A Failure, Report Says

    Global War On Drugs Is A Failure, Report Says

    According to a new report, in the last decade, drug-related deaths have increased by 145%.

    The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC, a non-governmental network of 177 organizations) released a report calling the United Nations’ global war on drugs a failure.

    The report addressed the United Nations’ goal to eliminate the illegal drug market by 2019 through a “War on Drugs” approach—which has had negligible effects on global drug supply while negatively impacting human rights, development, and security.

    The report recounted the terrible statistics: in the last decade, drug-related deaths have increased by 145%—with 71,000 estimated overdose deaths in the United States in 2017.

    In the past decade, at least 4,000 people were executed for drug-related offenses worldwide. The policy of extremism regarding drug dealers in the Philippines resulted in thousands of extrajudicial killings.

    In the United States, drug laws have resulted in mass incarceration. In many cases, inmates are convicted for personal possession of a drug. One in five inmates is currently imprisoned for drug offenses.

    According to CNN, the IDPC report asked the UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs to look for an alternate narcotics strategy for the next 10 years.  

    “The fact that governments and the UN do not see fit to properly evaluate the disastrous impact of the last ten years of drug policy is depressingly unsurprising,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said to CNN. “Governments will meet next March at the UN and will likely rubber-stamp more of the same for the next decade in drug policy. This would be a gross dereliction of duty and a recipe for more blood spilled in the name of drug control.”

    In March, U.S. President Donald Trump proposed making drug trafficking a capital offense. The report states that while international standards do not allow for the death penalty for drug offenses, 33 jurisdictions retain the death penalty and stand in violation of the agreed standard.

    “What we learn from the IDPC shadow report is compelling. Since governments started collecting data on drugs in the 1990s, the cultivation, consumption and illegal trafficking of drugs have reached record levels,” said Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, in the report’s foreword.

    “Moreover, current drug policies are a serious obstacle to other social and economic objectives and the ‘war on drugs’ has resulted in millions of people murdered, disappeared, or internally displaced.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Overdose Deaths Increase in New Jersey Even As Prescriptions Decline

    Overdose Deaths Increase in New Jersey Even As Prescriptions Decline

    State attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal says that despite the fatal OD increase “there are reasons for hope.”

    Opioid overdose deaths in New Jersey increased by 24% last year, even as the number of prescriptions written for opioids fell for the first time in recent years. 

    According to a press release from the state attorney general’s office, just over half of opioid overdose deaths in the state were caused by fentanyl and other synthetic opioids meant to mimic its strength. 

    “We still lose too many of our residents to drug overdoses, and the death toll continues to rise,” said Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal. “But, if we look at the numbers, there are reasons for hope.”

    Despite the fact that an average of eight New Jersey residents die from an opioid overdose each day, Grewal said that policies to limit prescriptions of opioids are working. The state’s opioid prescription rate peaked in 2015, when 5.64 million opioid prescriptions were dispensed.

    By 2017, that number was down to 4.87 million, making last year the first “in recent memory when the number of opioid prescriptions fell below 5 million,” said the press release. 

    In March 2017, the state enacted a five-day limit on first-time opioid prescriptions. Since then, prescriptions of opioids have decreased 26%.

    Between January 2014 and March 2017 they were reduced just 18%, so this suggests a significant improvement in cutting back on opioid prescriptions. Overall, opioid prescriptions have been reduced by 39% between January 2014 and July of this year.

    “The decreasing rate of prescription opioids dispensed in New Jersey shows that a smart approach to the opioid epidemic can help turn the tide. If we persist in our efforts to prevent addiction and overdoses, we can save lives,” said Sharon Joyce, director of the Office of the New Jersey Coordinator for Addiction Responses and Enforcement Strategies (NJ CARES).

    In order to try and decrease the opioid overdose rate, the state will begin offering more information online, including data on naloxone administration rates and overdose rates for specific counties. 

    “The Attorney General is not only making his Department’s opioids data publicly available,” the press release said. “Through NJ CARES, the Department is relying on data to target its education efforts and identify its enforcement priorities.”

    The administration is also focusing on outreach efforts, including an ad campaign to highlight a safe disposal program for unused prescriptions.

    And the musical Anytown will be performing at middle and high schools across the state to raise awareness about the dangers of opioids. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Surge In K2 Overdoses Worries Brooklyn's Community Leaders

    Surge In K2 Overdoses Worries Brooklyn's Community Leaders

    “We’ve seen this area be an epicenter for K2. Whether it’s a bodega or whether it’s a crime syndicate. It will not be allowed in this community.”

    After five individuals were hospitalized in the same evening for allegedly overdosing on synthetic marijuana community leaders and law enforcement in Brooklyn, New York announced a call for action to rein in the borough’s ongoing problems with use of the drug.

    Representatives from the City Council praised efforts by the New York Police Department (NYPD) for focusing their efforts on distribution rather than users, which has resulted in the closure of several bodegas that sell the drug – also known as spice or K2 – but noted that greater efforts to provide education, fair housing and treatment could make more lasting changes.

    The overdoses that prompted the community response all took place in the morning of September 8, 2018, when five men overdosed on the same corner in the Bushwick neighborhood – an area dubbed “Zombieland” by residents because of the high incidence of K2 use there.

    All five individuals, whom neighbors said had used synthetic marijuana, were listed in stable condition after being hospitalized; more than 100 people overdosed in a single weekend at that corner in May of 2018.

    Speaking on September 10, 2018 in front of a bodega that had been closed by NYPD for selling synthetic marijuana, City Council member Robert Cornegy told the assembled crowd that while police efforts have curbed the availability of the drug and reduced the sheer number of overdoses, five was still a “horrible number,” as High Times noted, and that more work was necessary to combat the K2 problem.

    “We’ve seen this area be an epicenter for K2,” he said. “Whether it’s a bodega, whether it’s an individual or whether it’s a crime syndicate. It will not be allowed in this community.”

    Cornegy voiced appreciation for the collaborative efforts between community leaders, local officials and the police, which he said was the “first time” all three groups had worked together on such a borough-wide issue. He also expressed gratitude for police efforts to halt the spread of K2 by targeting bodegas that sold the drug, and for focusing their efforts on distributors instead of those who use it.

    Information and increased resources were cited as a possible means of breaking the cycle of K2 abuse in Brooklyn. “Until we have an education system that allows people to achieve the highest in education, and where they can feel comfortable in affordable housing, you are going to have this kind of behavior,” Cornegy told the crowd.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • How Fentanyl Changed The Opioid Crisis

    How Fentanyl Changed The Opioid Crisis

    The prevalence and potency of illicit fentanyl has changed the course of the opioid crisis for the worse. 

    While prescription painkillers were previously attributed to the most deaths in the opioid epidemic, they no longer do. Instead, the leading cause of death in this context is now illegal fentanyl, according to a recent Bloomberg editorial.

    The National Center on Health Statistics states that in 2017, illegal fentanyl played a role in 60% of opioid deaths, in comparison to 11% of opioid deaths five years ago. 

    Fentanyl was created in 1960 and was used as a treatment for cancer pain. Illicit fentanyl has become common in the black market because it can be easily manufactured in a lab. Its potency also means it can be put into very small packages that are easy to conceal. 

    “Drug labs in China fulfill online orders from American users, or from traffickers in the U.S. and Mexico who add the fentanyl to heroin and other drugs to boost their effect, or press it into phony prescription-opioid pills,” the editorial reads. 

    Because of this, the editorial states, addressing the issue of illegal fentanyl needs to be focused first on China, which U.S. law enforcement officials claim is the source of nearly all illegal fentanyl. 

    The editorial states that the Obama administration had reached out to the Chinese government to ask for help in policing producers of fentanyl. But, with the Trump administration in place, that cooperation appears to have fallen by the wayside. 

    “What’s needed is a steady and purposeful diplomatic push, along with expert support for fortifying China’s capacity to inspect and regulate its thousands of drug labs,” the editorial board writes. 

    When fentanyl is exported from China, it mainly comes through the mail to both users and dealers. While Congress has allotted Customs and Border Protection more chemical-detection equipment, it is not possible to scan all packages entering the country. 

    “The task would be easier if Congress passed pending legislation to require the U.S. Postal Service to obtain basic identifying information from senders—including the name and address of sender and a description of package contents—as private parcel services do,” the editorial board writes.

    In addition to being sold on the dark web, fentanyl can also be found on regular websites, the board says. Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has spoken out about the need for internet companies to put more effort into taking down those listings. 

    While this all has to do with the supply, the aspect of demand must also be addressed, the board says. The more than 2 million Americans struggling with opioid or heroin use disorder need access to treatment, specifically medication-assisted treatment (MAT) and behavioral therapy.

    “Fentanyl and other opioids are killing more than 130 people a day. The crisis demands a thorough, well-coordinated national response. What the White House and Congress have come up with so far falls short,” the board concludes.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Fentanyl Present In 90% Of Drugs, Massachusetts Officials Warn

    Fentanyl Present In 90% Of Drugs, Massachusetts Officials Warn

    The synthetic opioid is found more in combination with cocaine and benzodiazepines than heroin.

    Officials in Massachusetts are warning the public that the presence of the deadly synthetic opioid, fentanyl, is increasingly common in all types of illicit drugs in the state—not just in heroin or other opioids—raising the overdose risk for users of cocaine and other illegal substances. 

    “If an individual is using illicit drugs in Massachusetts, there’s a very high likelihood that fentanyl, which is so deadly, could be present,” said Dr. Monica Bharel, commissioner of the state Department of Public Health, according to New England Public Radio. “Anybody using illicit drugs should understand the risks, carry naloxone, and access treatment.”

    The state’s quarterly report found that fentanyl is present in 90% of overdose deaths in Massachusetts. It is found more in combination with cocaine and benzodiazepines than with heroin. In 2014, fentanyl was found in less than 30% of overdose deaths in the Bay State. 

    Because fentanyl is becoming more prevalent in cocaine and benzodiazepines, officials are advising family members of people who use illicit drugs to carry naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug. People who do not use opioids regularly are more susceptible to fentanyl overdose because they have not built up an opioid tolerance. 

    Because of this, the state is urging healthcare providers to help all drug users get into treatment, not just those who report that their primary drug of choice is an opioid. 

    “When analyzing opioid overdose deaths, we have become aware that a significant portion of the deaths are associated with concurrent cocaine use,” the state wrote in a letter to providers. “We believe this information is useful for you in your clinical work. Additionally, patients should be aware that polysubstance use can NOT be a reason for refusal for admission in the treatment system.” 

    The report also showed that overdose deaths are declining in Massachusetts for the third straight quarter, even as such deaths continue to rise nationally. This could be due in part to the rising rates at which EMTs in the state are administering naloxone, as well as public health campaigns, Bharel said. 

    “In Massachusetts we have a multi-pronged approach,” she said. “This is about prevention, raising awareness in our communities, and raising awareness among our prescribers.” 

    However, not all demographics are seeing the improvement. Hispanics are disproportionately likely to die of an overdose in Massachusetts, and the overdose rates for black men continue to rise. 

    “While the results of our efforts are having an impact, we must double down on our efforts to implement treatment strategies that meet the needs of the highest risk individuals and communities,” Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said in a statement.

    View the original article at thefix.com