Dramatic body camera footage shows that a sheriff’s deputy in California nearly died after being exposed to fentanyl at an arrest last month.
As seen in a public safety video released by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department on Wednesday, Deputy David Faiivae was exposed to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, on July 3.
In video, which also features bodycam footage from the incident, Cpl. Scott Crane says he was helping train Faiivae on the day of the arrest. He explained that the deputy “found a white substance that he suspected was drugs.”
“I was like, ‘hey dude, too close.’ You can’t get that close to it. A couple seconds later, he took some steps back, and he collapsed,” Crane said.
Crane can be seen in the bodycam footage giving Faiive a nasal spray of naloxone, an anti-opioid overdose medication.
“I remember just not feeling right, and then I fell back, and I don’t remember anything after that,” Faiivae says in the public safety video. “It was in an instant.”
“I couldn’t breathe," he added. "I was trying to gasp for breath, but I couldn’t breathe at all."
When Faiivae is heard speaking again in the bodycam footage after collapsing, Crane told him, “I’ve got you, OK? I’m not going to let you die.”
After emergency personnel arrived to transport Faiivae to an area hospital, Crane said he "again" reacted to the drug.
San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore in the public safety video warned viewers about the dangers of fentanyl, noting that deaths from the drug in California have increased nearly 46% in the last year.
Overdose deaths spiked to 93,000 in 2020 , compared to 72,000 in 2019. Officials have pointed to fentanyl as a key driver of the fatalities.
AUSTIN, Texas — Austin police now have another tool to help save lives.
On Tuesday, the Austin Police Department received enough of the opioid overdose reversal drug NARCAN to equip the entire force, thanks to a donation from the Texas Overdose Naloxone Initiative (TONI).
Currently, only APD's Organized Crime Division officers carry the drug. Austin-Travis County EMS (ATCEMS) medics respond to overdose calls alongside APD officers and administer NARCAN when necessary.
In 2019, EMS received reports of at least 323 overdoses in Travis County. Medics respond to an average of one or two overdose calls every day.
TONI co-founder Mark Kinzly has worked to get more NARCAN on streets since 2013. His organization, through grant funding, has been able to provide nearly 45,000 units of NARCAN to police departments in more than 180 Texas cities.
“I personally am someone who has been rescued by this medication a number of occasions,” Kinzly said. “It saved my life. I wouldn't be here.”
Kinzly, who struggled with addiction for years, was brought back to life four times by NARCAN.
The drug is something APD Lt. Doug Rice has been trying to get for all officers in the department for months.
“Ultimately, the goal is to outfit every single officer in the department with a unit of NARCAN,” Rice said.
He estimated that would have cost the department more than $250,000 – something that wasn’t planned for in the budget, and something that might not be as high of a priority, considering EMS has NARCAN and Texas continues to have a low rate of opioid overdose deaths as compared to other states.
“We're in the process of getting it. It's just going to take a little bit of time, unfortunately,” Rice told KVUE Tuesday.
That’s when KVUE connected him with Kinzly, who had enough NARCAN through his organization to deliver to the police department within an hour on Tuesday – 1,800 units, for free.
“This is a huge step in the right direction for officers' safety and public safety as it relates to opioid overdoses,” Rice said after the delivery. “We have to take some internal steps, make sure that we provide the officers with some training, make sure that we've got procedures in place and how to track usage, you know, how to track and provide replacements if NARCAN is used.”
An ATCEMS representative told KVUE more NARCAN on the streets means more lives saved.
The Travis County Sheriff’s Office and other smaller forces – including the Round Rock Police Department , UT police and the Cedar Park Police Department – already carry NARCAN.
In Cedar Park, NARCAN has saved more than a dozen lives since 2017 when it became available to officers.
“It's an extremely important thing to have and the preservation of life, that's what being a first responder is all about,” Cedar Park Investigator Justin Coleman said. “Being able to have that additional tool in our tool belt to use it to save people, that's – I mean, there's nothing better than that.”
Now, Kinsly said he hopes his organization can supply and resupply the departments that end up using the NARCAN or, if it gets to the point of expiration, that TONI can replenish the supply.
“I'm grateful that they'll have this medication to administer if need be. You know, you hope they never do, but you're grateful if they have an event that they have it on hand,” Kinzly said.
The department still has to figure out what to do with all the NARCAN and how to roll it out – but Rice said there’s already a training video ready, which was used to train the Organized Crime Unit.
APD released the following statement:
The Austin Police Department’s top priority is to keep the public safe. A NARCAN donation was recently made to the department. While APD is not mandated under federal law or any state mandate to carry NARCAN, officers working in the Organized Crime Division who work on cases involving large amounts of narcotics are equipped with NARCAN. They are trained to administer the drug to opioid users in crisis, and also to self-administer if necessary. Within the City of Austin, we do not encounter a large number of opioid-related overdoses as compared to those occurring in other jurisdictions. According to National Institute on Drug Abuse, Texas continues to have one of the lowest rates of drug overdose deaths involving opioids . We are fortunate that our partners at Austin-Travis County EMS respond to opioid overdose calls alongside APD officers, and are also equipped and trained to administer the life-saving drug.
KVUE also reached out to Mayor Steve Adler 's office for a statement and received the following:
"Safety is a key priority for everyone in this City. The council voted to support efforts to address opioid use in 2018 and has directed the City to review new and upcoming opportunities for federal or state discussions and funding. Our first responders save lives every day, are highly trained to address related incidents, and both our police department and our Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Service professionals are equipped to manage situations as they arise."
In 2015, Texas Senate Bill 1462 expanded access to Narcan for everyone in Texas, including emergency services personnel. In 2017, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion , authorizing law enforcement agencies to use the life-saving drug.
In 2018, the Austin City Council passed a resolution directing the city manager to “evaluate critical needs as early as possible” and recommended looking at solutions including Naloxone [Narcan] kits. Then in January 2019, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy recommended that all law enforcement in the United States be equipped with NARCAN.
A new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there is still not enough of the overdose-reversal drug naloxone where it is needed most.
Naloxone, or its name brand Narcan, can reverse the effects of overdoses on prescription painkillers or other opioids.
The CDC report said the number of prescriptions for naloxone doubled from 2017 to 2018.
However, rural counties were far less likely to dispense the lifesaving drug. Often, those are the areas hit hardest by addiction.
“Naloxone distribution is an important component of the public health response to the opioid overdose epidemic,” the CDC said in the report. “Health care providers can prescribe or dispense naloxone when overdose risk factors are present and counsel patients on how to use it.”
Even though it is recommended that the drug be dispensed with every painkiller prescription, the report found that only one in every 69 high-dose opioid prescriptions came with naloxone.
The CDC is asking doctors and pharmacists to allow more access to the drug. The agency also asked insurance companies to lower out-of-pocket costs for patients.
“Efforts to improve naloxone access and distribution work most effectively with efforts to improve opioid prescribing, implement other harm-reduction strategies, promote linkage to medications for opioid use disorder treatment, and enhance public health and public safety partnerships,” the CDC said.
If you want to know what it means for something to grow exponentially, consider the death toll of fentanyl.
This powerful synthetic opioid seemingly came out of nowhere and is now killing tens of thousands of Americans each year.
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention details the meteoric rise of a drug that was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration back in 1968. It shows that fentanyl’s role as a driver of the opioid epidemic can be traced to late 2013.
Researchers from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics tallied the lives claimed by fentanyl between 2011 and 2016.
The figures were drawn from death records produced by coroners and medical examiners throughout the country. And while some of these officials were slow to recognize the new threat, the CDC researchers accounted for the fact that as the scourge spread, coroners and medical examiners became more likely to notice when fentanyl played a role in a person’s death.
Altogether, the records revealed that more than 36,000 Americans died with fentanyl in their systems during the study period. The majority of those deaths — 18,335 — occurred in 2016 alone.
The CDC experts used those figures to calculate annual death rates for overdoses involving fentanyl. After adjusting for age, they found that it is indeed growing exponentially — doubling every year.
In 2011 and 2012, there were 0.5 drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl for every 100,000 Americans. After that, the death rate began its precipitous climb.
Between 2013 and 2014, it jumped from 0.6 to 1.3 deaths per 100,000 Americans. In 2015, it climbed to 2.6 deaths per 100,000. And by 2016, there were 5.9 fentanyl-related deaths for every 100,000 Americans.
Fentanyl is anywhere from 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. When taken in uncontrolled concentrations by unsuspecting users, or by users whose opioid tolerance has not been heightened by long-term use, the drug is more likely even than prescription opioids to suppress respiration and cause death.
China’s 160,000 chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturers are among the major suppliers of illicit fentanyl , according to testimony presented last summer by Paul E. Knierim of the Drug Enforcement Administration to a House of Representatives subcommittee on global health.
To feed a growing population of Americans with addiction, these Chinese firms are shipping their product directly to the United States, and sometimes to cartels in Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean. Once in the Western Hemisphere, these chemicals are combined with heroin, cocaine and other drugs, and often pressed into counterfeit pills to be sold online or on the street as prescription opioids.
The result is as profitable as it is deadly.
Knierim, the deputy chief of operations for the DEA’s Office of Global Enforcement, told lawmakers that because fentanyl is so powerful and can boost the potency of so many illicit drugs, a single kilogram purchased in China for $3,000 to $5,000 “can generate upwards of $1.5 million in revenue on the illicit market with the potential of being lethal for 500,000 people.”
The new CDC report shows that fentanyl’s claim on female lives has risen sharply, but the toll among men is far more pronounced.
The rate of fatal overdoses involving fentanyl also increased exponentially for Americans of nearly all ages. But by 2014, young adults between the ages of 25 and 34 had both the highest rate of fatal fentanyl overdoses and the steepest rise in those deaths.
The epidemic of fentanyl deaths has ravaged New England, roared down the Atlantic Coast to Virginia, turned inland to the coalfields and hollows of West Virginia, and spread across the Rust Belt and the Upper Midwest. Fentanyl deaths were also on the rise from Arkansas to Alaska and across the American West, though in those areas they increased much more slowly.
Some experts believe the death rate will soon begin to rise more slowly in places like Massachusetts, where fentanyl gained an early and especially deadly foothold. However, they say the West has not yet seen the peak of this spreading epidemic.
The new report also documents a shift that had become evident to emergency responders and public health authorities by 2016: While death rates from prescription opioids and illicit synthetic opioids have been highest among rural white Americans, the expansion of an illegal market is creating new communities of users in urban centers, and among minorities.
Indeed, between 2011 and 2016, the rate of fatal fentanyl overdoses grew fastest among African Americans and Latinos.
Authorities raided a residential suburban home in leafy Westchester County, New York Friday morning and walked out with enough fentanyl to kill nearly 2 million people, an official with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said.
Five kilograms of the poisonously potent synthetic opioid were seized along with 6 kilograms of heroin, a more common street drug which, when spiked with fentanyl, has caused tens of thousands of fatal overdoses in America in recent years.
Officials said police arrested 31-year-old Braulio Mata, of Ardsley, 44-year-old Jose Garcia, of Ardsley, 47-year-old Ramon Aracena Alfe, of Mount Vernon, 32-year-old Dionell Duarte Hernandez, of New York, and 20-year-old Yarly Mendoza-Delorbe, of Ardsley.
"The fentanyl alone has the potency to kill nearly over two million people," said Ray Donovan, New York division DEA Special Agent in Charge. "I commend the men and women in the Task Force and Tactical Diversion Squad for their quick and efficient investigation into this organization and their diligence to the safety of the residents living nearby."
The owner of the house told ABC station WABC he rented the split level home in December to a couple who moved from the Bronx but says he was unaware of any illegal activity.
The Ardsley raid was conducted by a task force that included the DEA, Westchester County police, Orangetown police, the Rockland County Sheriff's Office, Yonkers police, and the Putnam County Sheriff's Department.
The targeting of supply streams of fentany l is part of a nationwide campaign to stem the flow of fentanyl, which has exacerbated a nationwide epidemic of opioid overdoses when it is used to strengthen the potency of more common street drugs like heroin and prescription pills like oxycodone.
Earlier this week, two California men who operated a similar drug mill out of a Michigan condominium were sentenced to prison. In the summer of 2017, authorities seized 10 kilograms of pure fentanyl and 20 kilograms of heroin-laced fentanyl , and more than a half million in cash. The seizure contained enough fentanyl to kill ten million people, federal authorities said.
Last week, a 75-year-old New York doctor was convicted of conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and fentanyl after authorities charged that he wrote more than one million prescriptions for oxycodone over three years between 2015 and 2017. Hundreds of fentanyl sprays were seized from the doctor’s home, along with about $729,000 in cash, officials said.
Authorities said that pain management specialist Dr. Ernesto Lopez of Flushing, New York typically charged narcotics-seeking patients $200 to $300 in cash in return for the prescriptions, even though, officials said, 80 percent of his patients were insured.
The week before that, a 29-year-old Connecticut man pleaded guilty to selling opioids in 2017 to a 24-year-old man the day before the buyer died of a fatal opioid overdose. The dealer faces up to 20 years in prison.
More than 28,000 Americans died of synthetic opioid overdoses in 2017, the last year for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides a report.
https://krcrtv.com/news/local/the-danger-of-coming-across-fentanyl-or-other-drugs
REDDING, Calif. — After their response to a mass overdose Saturday, and administering several doses of Naloxone, two Chico Police officers had to be treated after being exposed to the drug Fentanyl and something else.
Chico Police Chief Michael O'Brien says the officers were transported to the hospital but were treated and released and are doing well.
As of 2018, Redding police officers also carry something similar to Naloxone, called "Narcan". Redding Chief Cullen Kreider says the Redding Fire Department does not carry Naloxone yet. Recently, the department has received the S-SV approval to carry it and have also received a grant to purchase it. Chief Kreider says they plan on training their administration on the counter drug soon so they can have it on board their engines.
First responders that do carry it say it is a life-saving tool, that has been added to their duty belts.
"This Narcan [a version of Naloxone] is so easy to use. It's simply just a spray into the nose and it immediately has an effect," Officer Will Williams with the Redding Police Department explained.
The counter drug is really meant to save the officers who come in contact with narcotics on a crime scene but "Narcan", or Naloxone, can be administered to someone who has overdosed as well. "Our tolerance is zero and having such a low tolerance, it really does not take much for an officer to lose his life," Williams said.
As the amount of calls that involve street drugs has increased, so has an officer's preparedness. Their defensive tactics when dealing with drugs can come down to a matter of life and death.
"It's a gross, disgusting but very impactful drug that causes a great desire in many to have it again," Williams said. Drugs such as Fentanyl are becoming more and more pervasive.
So how dangerous are these drugs and how easily can you come in contact with them?
Authorities say a person that has never taken drugs and accidentally comes across them will feel the side effects of a drug like Fentanyl before ever seeing it.
"We can come in a lot more contact then we ever thought possible," Williams said.
"Where a person might find themselves in contact with this type of drug, Fentanyl or Heroin, is you go to get your grocery cart and there's your grocery cart and there's a little cellophane wrapper in there and you just want to get the trash out of there so you reach in and grab it and throw it in the trash. What you didn't know, is that's how drugs are carried," Williams added.
A person may feel sick, light headed, and depending on how much they come in contact with, the drugs can be deadly.
As easy as the counter drug is to carry, officers say some people do not want it and that worries them the most.
"Immediately after receiving something that saved their life, there's no thought that it saved their life. That realization is just not there. Instead, it's this anger of intervening on their ability to use drugs," Williams explained.
Redding Police suggest carrying rubber gloves in your first aid kit at all times in your vehicle. Naloxone is also available over the counter at pharmacies, which police suggest adding to your medical kit.
A Citra man wanted for violation of probation from another county had to be revived by a police officer and treated at a local hospital.
Officers were called to the 1400 block of Northeast 17th Avenue on Thursday in reference to a man found unresponsive in the residence by his girlfriend.
Ocala police Officer Kyle Kern arrived and noticed the victim was sweaty. He performed CPR on the man, later identified as 44-year-old Hubert Almand, until medical personnel arrived. While medical officials were tending to Almand, Kern gave the man a dose of Narcan, a nasal form of naloxone, and he woke up. Almand told officials that he was fine, but doesn’t remember anything.
Almand was transported to Florida Hospital Ocala for further treatment. Almand told medical officials that he injected heroin, according to police officials. Almand was detained pursuant to the Marchman Act, which allows authorities to initiate protective custody.
The victim’s girlfriend told Officer Michael Graham that when she arrived home, Almand was lying against the kitchen cabinet and she called 911. She said she poured water on her boyfriend, trying to wake him, but he did not respond.
The officer noted that the couple’s 3-month-old daughter was present during the incident and notified the Department of Children and Families, which said it would investigate.
At the hospital, officers checked Almand’s criminal history and discovered he’s wanted in Hillsborough County for violation of probation for one count each of uttering a false instrument, dealing in stolen property and providing false information to a pawnbroker, two counts of grand theft and 10 counts of cash or deposit item with intent to defraud. Almand was released from the hospital Friday morning and transported to the Marion County Jail.
Thursday’s Narcan incident was the 32nd time a city police officer has assisted or saved someone using the spray. Police officials said there have been 119 overdose cases with 19 deaths within the city limits of Ocala so far this year.
In February, city and police officials created an amnesty program where addicts can go to the police department, tell them they need help and they will be taken to a treatment facility for help. To date, 34 people had accepted their offer.
Campbell Police Officer Ryan Young is recovering well after being one of the four officers exposed to a powdery while drug while on the job Friday.
Now that he's recovering, he's speaking out about Issue One, asking all Ohio voters to consider his situation before voting.
"It essentially felt like I was dying," said Young.
That's how Young described the moments after he and his fellow officers Melissa Williams, Chris Carson and Samantha Peak came into contact with what they suspect was heroin laced with fentanyl.
The situation was caught on surveillance camera in Campbell court as 34-year-old Christopher Patton allegedly handed off suboxone to his girlfriend, who was in police custody facing a felony narcotics charge.
"At that point, I ran after the gentleman that was in court because he took off running," said Young. "He got in his car and he was about to take off. I placed him in handcuffs, pulled out his wallet, ran his ID to my dispatch to let them know who we have in custody. At that point, when I touched his driver's license, it was actually covered in suspected heroin. That is what he advised us."
About ten minutes later, he began to feel the effects.
"My face started burning, tingling, I got light headed. I got a really bad headache, I started seeing white and black dots on my hands," said Young. "When Life Fleet checked my pulse, they said my numbers were off the charts for being the age I am."
Patton is booked into the Mahoning County Jail on charges of drug abuse (drug possession), illegal conveyance of weapons and driving under suspension revocation or restriction.
While he was being arrested, Young and the three other officers were being decontaminated and taken to the hospital.
"They had to shut down one of the wings in the hospital we were in," said Young. "While they were decontaminating us, one of the nurses became contaminated and started going through the symptoms we were going through as well."
Young said after being treated with Narcan to stop him from overdosing, he wants Ohio voters to consider this while at the polls and to vote no on Issue One.
"Now, if Issue One passes, they're going to allow you to carry up to 20 grams of fentanyl, crack cocaine, anything with those means," said Young. "It's only going to be a misdemeanor. Twenty grams of fentanyl can kill 10,000 people. It's not okay. I barely touched a little bit of what I believe is speculated fentanyl and it almost killed me. Imagine if 20 grams would have touched me."
While State Issue One has become a highly contentious election topic in Ohio, Young believes a no vote is necessary to keep law enforcement and others safe.
Proponents of Issue One argue the issue would provide more treatment for those with substance abuse problems, rather than jail time.
Young and the other officers affected are expected to return to work Tuesday.
http://www.wfmj.com/story/39327809/campbell-police-officer-details-near-overdose-experience
Drug overdoses killed about 72,000 Americans last year, a record number that reflects a rise of around 10 percent, according to new preliminary estimates from the Centers for Disease Control. The death toll is higher than the peak yearly death totals from H.I.V., car crashes or gun deaths.
Analysts pointed to two major reasons for the increase: A growing number of Americans are using opioids, and drugs are becoming more deadly. It is the second factor that most likely explains the bulk of the increased number of overdoses last year.
The picture is not equally bleak everywhere. In parts of New England, where a more dangerous drug supply arrived early, the number of overdoses has begun to fall. That was the case in Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island; each state has had major public health campaigns and has increased addiction treatment. Preliminary 2018 numbers from Massachusetts suggest that the death rate there may be continuing to fall.
But nationwide, the crisis worsened in the first year of the Trump presidency, a continuation of a long-term trend. During 2017, the president declared the opioid crisis a national public health emergency , and states began tapping a $1 billion grant program to help fight the problem.
“Because it’s a drug epidemic as opposed to an infectious disease epidemic like Zika, the response is slower,” said Dan Ciccarone, a professor of family and community medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies heroin markets. “Because of the forces of stigma, the population is reluctant to seek care. I wouldn’t expect a rapid downturn; I would expect a slow, smooth downturn.”A large government telephone survey suggests that around 2.1 million Americans had opioid use disorders in 2016, but that number may be an undercount because not all drug users have telephones and some may not mention their drug use because of the stigma. Dr. Ciccarone said the real number could be as high as four million.
The number of opioid users has been going up “in most places, but not at this exponential rate,” said Brandon Marshall, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health. “The dominant factor is the changing drug supply.”
Strong synthetic opioids like fentanyl and its analogues have become mixed into black-market supplies of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and the class of anti-anxiety medicines known as benzodiazepines. Unlike heroin, which is derived from poppy plants, fentanyl can be manufactured in a laboratory, and it is often easier to transport because it is more concentrated.
Unexpected combinations of those drugs can overwhelm even experienced drug users. In some places, the type of synthetic drugs mixed into heroin changes often, increasing the risk for users. While the opioid epidemic was originally concentrated in rural, white populations, the death toll is becoming more widespread. The penetration of fentanyl into more heroin markets may explain recent increases in overdose deaths among older, urban black Americans ; those who used heroin before the recent changes to the drug supply might be unprepared for the strength of the new mixtures.
“Even when you think you’re doing better, all it takes is one bad batch of fentanyl in any state and you’re going to have deaths,” said Mark Levine, a physician and the health commissioner of Vermont, which has made major investments in addiction treatment but still experienced a spike in deaths in 2016. Last year, deaths fell slightly there.
According to the C.D.C. estimates, overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids rose sharply, while deaths from heroin, prescription opioid pills and methadone fell.
In much of the West, overdose deaths have been flatter as the epidemic has raged in parts of the East and Midwest. That geographical pattern may be a result of the drug supply. Heroin sold west of the Mississippi tends to be processed into a form known as black tar that is difficult to mix with synthetic drugs. The heroin sold toward the east is a more processed white powder that is more easily combined with fentanyls.
Overdose deaths rose sharply in several mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states. In Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia, where the opioid death rate has been high for years, overdose deaths increased by more than 17 percent in each state. In New Jersey, they rose 27 percent.
The C.D.C. numbers for 2017 are an estimate, not a final count. The federal government collects death records from states throughout the year. But some deaths can take longer to investigate than others. The C.D.C. adjusts early numbers based on the number of deaths still under investigation by assuming a predictable proportion of them will turn out to be drug overdoses based on past experience. Using deaths that are confirmed, the agency measured a 10.2 percent increase in overdose deaths between 2016 and 2017. Using its adjusted data, the increase was 9.5 percent.
There are reasons for optimism that the recent increases in overdose deaths will not continue. The monthly C.D.C. numbers suggest that deaths might have begun leveling off by the end of the year. Continuing funding may help more states develop the kind of public health programs that appear to have helped in New England.
“There’s a lot of money going into the system, and it takes some time for this to translate into new infrastructure,” said Chris Jones, the director of the national mental health and substance use policy laboratory . “That’s particularly true for places where it wasn’t already there.”
In Dayton, Ohio, a hot spot for the epidemic, public health officials are seeing signs of progress. After instituting a new emergency response strategy — and drawing from new federal and state grant funds — the county health department has documented reductions in overdose deaths, emergency room visits and ambulance calls of more than 60 percent between January 2017 and June of this year.
The county has reduced medical opioid prescribing; increased addiction treatment resources; expanded community access to an anti-overdose drug called naloxone; and provided addiction treatment to prisoners in its county jail, among other measures.
Barbara Marsh, the assistant to the Dayton and Montgomery County health commissioner, says she hopes the trend will hold, and provide some lessons for other parts of the state. “It’s definitely wait and see,” she said. “We want to continue seeing a decline.”
Congress is debating a variety of bills to fight the epidemic. Many of the measures, which have passed the House but have not reached the Senate floor, are focused on reducing medical prescriptions of opioids, and are meant to reduce the number of new drug users. But the package also includes measures that could expand treatment for people who already use opioids.
The epidemic could also intensify again. One worrying sign: Dr. Jones said there is some early evidence that drug distributors are finding ways to mix fentanyl with black tar heroin, which could increase death rates in the West. If that becomes more widespread, the overdose rates in the West could explode as they have in parts of the East.