Heroin in Ohio: A Tsunami-Sized Epidemic
Heroin by the Numbers from kristen anzuini on Vimeo.
Ohio’s heroin epidemic is at an all-time high, with the amount of heroin users and the number of heroin-related deaths steadily rising. Last year, alone there were 228 deaths due to heroin. The heroin epidemic is national, however, Ohio is now one of the top states in the country for drug overdoses.
August set a record for the highest monthly fatality rate ever in Cuyahoga County. Over Labor Day Weekend, at least 10 people died due to heroin, heroin-related drugs, fentanyl and carfentanil, or some combination of these. There have been 14 deaths this month already, according to Christopher Harris, the Communications Specialist of Cuyahoga County’s Medical Examiner’s Office.
“It [heroin] affects everybody,” said Community Resource Officer Tricia Knoles of the Kent State Police. “Heroin is nondiscriminatory. Every class, race, religion we’ve all been affected by it.”
Heroin is an opioid drug that is synthesized from morphine, that’s extracted from the seedpod of the Asian opium poppy plant. Heroin usually appears as a white or brown powder, according to DrugAbuse.gov.
One of the main causes of this epidemic is the rampant prescription of painkillers that can quickly turn into an addiction. Many heroin addictions are born trying to feed an addiction to prescription pain medication.
“People are becoming addicted in some cases to prescription medications and then they’re looking for something else then they’re looking for heroin,” said Derick Kenne, a professor of drug research at Kent State.
“There’s a pretty low perception of harm in terms of the dangers of using prescription medications,” said Kenne. “Probably even less knowledge of people going from prescription drugs to heroin. People don’t connect that right now. I don’t know if that’s just because it’s not in the media enough and people don’t see that. Or maybe that’s how we are as a society, that we don’t think anything is bad until it happens to us.”
As the devastation of heroin addiction becomes more widespread, the drug and its users evolve as well.
“Generally folks remember heroin as a back-alley, syringe, tablespoon, melting of opiate: put it in the syringe and put it in the arm,” said Harris. “That is no longer the case. What we have is a pill or a capsule that can be ground down [and] snuffed up to have an immediate impact of a hit and it’s manufactured so very cheap. You get it for five or ten dollars a pill or a capsule. So, they market it [as] easier to use, better for distribution, and cheaper.”
Fentanyl has become a popular substance to cut heroin with, making the drug more deadly.
“The main reason why heroin has become so fatal right now is because it’s being cut in with fentanyl and carfentanil, which is a lot more powerful than heroin in and of itself,” said Knoles. “So it can be the first time ever trying it and you can overdose on it.”
“Fentanyl is a synthetic drug that the docs use to put us to sleep when we have open heart surgery and things of that nature,” said Harris. “That misuse is killing people. Fentanyl is 200 times more dangerous than heroin. Carfentanil is like 200 more times dangerous.”
Fentanyl and carfentanil have risen in popularity due to demand. Heroin dealers feel pressure to cut their product with stronger drugs, creating a more potent and deadly mixture of heroin.
“Some of the dealers will say jokingly to the risk-takers ‘hey this stuff will kill you,’ meaning this is really good stuff,” said Harris. “So good, that first time users are dying and we know that because we have very few in treatment that have had fentanyl only. They don’t survive.”
For heroin users, it’s impossible to distinguish the contents of the heroin that they purchase. Each time they use heroin, it’s a gamble with their lives.
“This seems weird, but I’ve talked to a lot of drug addicts,” said Kenne. “When they hear about these overdoses that happened in large groups, like six or seven people overdosed on a Saturday, it makes them want to know where that heroin came from. They want that because they know that if it causes you to overdose, it must be very powerful. This seems kind of weird because you would think that ‘I don’t want anything to do with that because people are overdosing when they use that,’ but to someone who is a drug addict, who is chasing that euphoria and that high, that’s immediately what they want.”
This tsunami of an epidemic has overwhelmed even the recovery facilities. It’s estimated that heroin overdoses will kill more than 500 people in Cuyahoga County this year. The lack of available assistance for recovering addicts affects the entire community. Taxpayer funded programs are needing more funding to accommodate the rise in addicts.
“We’ll probably hit about 550 deaths, which is 300 more deaths than we had last year,” Harris said. “That’s not a modest increase. That’s a tsunami, in which we’re dealing with today.”
The effects of heroin are debilitating to the entire community, even those who don’t participate in drug use at all.
“If you don’t use heroin and you’ve never used drugs and you’re the law abiding ‘perfect citizen,’ it costs us eventually through taxpayer money,” said Kenne. Tax money for things like education, road construction and other social programs eventually take a backseat to larger issues. This means a larger percentage of public funds will go to law enforcement, treatment facilities and other resources created to battle this growing epidemic.
“Before this time period, we were able to serve individuals in the less than 50 deaths,” said William Denihan, the Chief Executive Officer of ADAMHS (Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services) in Cuyahoga County. “We’re now doing ten times [more traffic and] our beds have not increased ten times.”
There is a growing concern about inadequate funding for heroin relief programs.
“For the state of Ohio, I can tell you that we’re grossly underfunded,” said Denihan. “Where we had almost 8 million dollars three years ago, Cuyahoga County received about 39 million dollars from the health and home service levy. But, in comparison to other counties who, with the same population, get over 60 million or 49 million.”
Public funds don’t just go to recovery facilities and law enforcement, but also to distributing Narcan kits to police, citizens and organizations that provide drug intervention help.
The Narcan kit has a naloxone, which reverses the effects of a heroin overdose or any opioid-related overdose. The naloxone is administered through a nasal spray. Project DAWN (Deaths Avoided with Naloxone) is a main proponent of the spread of the Narcan kits.
Project DAWN kits have been distributed to all Portage County police officers, who have been trained to administer naloxone. Narcan kits are now available to any citizen over-the-counter in many pharmacies around the area. The pharmacies charge $72 each kit.
“The Portage County Health Department and the Mental Health Board of Portage County split the cost to provide those [Narcan kits] to residents and police officers because they are very expensive,” said Knoles.
“They distributed about 1,500 Project DAWN narcan packets last year,” said Denihan. “And about 150 to 160 individuals had saved their lives by reversing the overdose. That’s a little more than 10%.”
Narcan is making an impact, but the numbers related to heroin are rising. In Cuyahoga County, the beds in the recovery rehabilitation centers are all currently full and families are having more funerals for loved ones. The effects of heroin continue to devastate nationwide, making this an extremely critical issue for the state of Ohio.
“My hope is that we rally around the fact that we don’t want this and we need to figure out how to stop this together,” said Denihan. “We need to have people stand up and say ‘I’m sick and tired of this I don’t want it to happen anymore.’”
As people become more educated on the effects of this drug, discussion will bring about necessary change. “I see the families talking about this now and I want to open up that avenue of discussion and have that discussion turn into something,” said Denihan.
We took an in depth look at the numbers behind the heroin epidemic. #JMCRPP
— Kristen Anzuini (@kanzuini) September 19, 2016
The heroin epidemic’s influence is rapidly increasing. “Heroin in Ohio: A Tsunami-Sized Epidemic” dives into the real statistics. #JMCRPP
— Dara Sander (@DaraSander1) September 19, 2016
The heroin epidemic is killing record numbers of people. Action is necessary on a federal, state, and local level. #JMCRPP
— Tae La Vie (@LoveTaylorXOXO) September 19, 2016
