Pot times

Drug Deaths Show Dramatic Increase

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1096/a01.html
Newshawk: _Humphrey Ploughjogger_ (www.MassCann.org)

Pubdate: Sun, 10 Jul 2005
Source: Eagle-Tribune, The (MA)
Copyright: 2005 The Eagle-Tribune
Contact: letters@eagletribune.com
Website: http://www.eagletribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/129
Author: Marjory Sherman
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

DRUG DEATHS SHOW DRAMATIC INCREASE

Heroin and opiates, often in toxic combination with alcohol, claimed the lives of more than 200 people North of Boston and in Southern New Hampshire in 2003 and 2004.

The dramatic death toll reflects the consequences of drug traffickers flooding the region with potent, inexpensive heroin and an explosion in abuse of prescription Oxycontin tablets as available as your grandmother's medicine cabinet.  Among the dead were teenagers and 20-somethings who graduated from snorting crushed OxyContin pills to injecting some of the $4-a-bag ultrapure heroin readily available.

Families are left to mourn the dead -- a Marblehead teen athlete dead from OxyContin poisoning, a former newspaper carrier and football player who died when he tried heroin for the first time, the beloved college-age daughter of a Lynn firefighter.

Meanwhile, the best minds in law, medicine and education struggle to contain the problem and find help for those most in need.

Data released in recent weeks confirm what some say is an epidemic of heroin and Oxycontin overdoses.

* Massachusetts reported a sixfold increase in deaths from narcotics in the past 13 years.  More people in Massachusetts die from drug overdoses than in motor vehicle crashes, according to a recent Department of Public Health report on opioids.  In 2003, some 574 people died of drug-related causes and 521 in car accidents.

* New Hampshire drug deaths tripled in a decade, with 114 such cases reported in 2004, including 86 where heroin and other opiates were used, according to the office of the state medical examiner.

* The rate of drug-related deaths in Essex and Rockingham counties is higher than every other nearby geographic region except Suffolk County -- which includes Boston -- according to a June report by the Drug Abuse Warning Network of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.  Essex County counts 126 deaths per million, Rockingham County 107, and Suffolk County 194.

* In 2003, there were 106 drug misuse deaths and suicides in Essex County and 37 in Rockingham County in New Hampshire, the June report shows.  From his first days in office in 2003, Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett was stunned to learn the enormity of the problem.  His first clue was a meeting of police chiefs he had assembled to discuss important law enforcement issues.  Heroin overdoses, both lethal and not, were their biggest concern.  "The first step was awareness," Blodgett recalled.  "I found out a lot of people were aware of this, but it was a dark secret.  People didn't want to talk about it." Blodgett would go into schools to lead meetings about drug abuse, and people would approach him afterward to share concerns about their nieces and nephews and neighbors who were addicted to opiates or OxyContin.  "It became apparent that this was not a problem just in the urban centers of Lawrence and Lynn," he said.  "It was across the board." He heard stories of high school students who would steal OxyContin from their grandparents or buy it from a friend.  When the cost became prohibitive at $80 a pill, they would turn to heroin at $4 a bag.

"What was shocking was the breadth of the problem across socioeconomic lines, across the communities, across the county," Blodgett said.  "It was really eye-opening to see how bad a problem it was."

In New Hampshire, James Chamdalares of the alcohol and substance abuse bureau said the rising rate of heroin use adds to the shortage of beds in government treatment facilities.

"We've been hearing for a while that the use of heroin has been increasing," he said.  "We are utilizing our resources as best we can, to as many people as we can possibly accommodate.  Most of our treatment facilities are at capacity." By putting numbers to the heart-wrenching stories of drug overdoses, officials hope to generate more government money for treatment and prevention.  Blodgett said that state police investigators assigned to his office estimate that 170 people were killed by opiates or by a combination of opiates and alcohol in 2003 and 2004.  Many of those cases were in affluent suburban communities, including Andover and North Andover, he said.  Even that number is an undercount, the district attorney said.  Blodgett believes there are as many as 20 percent to 25 percent more fatal opiate overdoses, but those deaths are reported as heart attacks or organ failure, partly to protect the privacy of families.

"I'm absolutely convinced there's more than that," he said.  The district attorney supports state legislation that would require hospitals to report overdoses, both lethal and nonlethal, to law enforcement authorities.

"We are trying to ask the hospitals to be open," he said.  "It is important to get information in real time to the streets, and to help people get the medical treatment they need.  Until we have the true numbers, we're not going to be able to get the funding we need for beds ( for substance abuse )." Contrary to what hospital officials fear, he said, "we are not looking to handcuff them to the gurneys."

While hospitals like the one in Lynn report an upswing in heroin overdoses, Dr.  Patrick Curran said he has seen the opposite in the emergency department at Lawrence General Hospital.  He has seen only five overdose cases in five months, none of them fatal.  That is a far cry from the days a decade ago when hordes of people would show up at the emergency room, sick from the strychnine and other chemicals cut into poor quality heroin.

Curran wondered whether the overdoses today are so lethal that people die at home, never making it to the hospital.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health report on escalating deaths from heroin and other narcotics comes at a time when nearly $11 million has been cut over three years from money to treat and prevent drug and alcohol abuse.  The administration of Gov.  Mitt Romney recently increased funding by $9 million for the substance abuse bureau, but some say there are still not enough treatment beds to care for people with addictions.

The state is now aiming to reach out to parents of young children in the third, fourth and fifth grades, to point out that youngsters model their behavior on what they see and hear at home.

"While we've been really concerned with heroin and OxyContin," said Michael Botticelli of the Massachusetts Health Department substance abuse bureau, "We also know the earlier kids use, the likelier they are to develop significant problems.  That hasn't changed.  What has changed is what they use, and that's a matter of culture and availability.  It used to be crack cocaine.  Before that it was marijuana, and before that it was alcohol." The Public Health Department is trying to appeal in a new advertising campaign to parents of young children to send a message that talking with children and the behavior they model are crucial.

"There is some evidence that baby boomer parents seem to be somewhat reluctant to talk with their own kids about their own behavior," Botticelli said.  He recommends that parents tell children, "If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't do it, and I wouldn't want you to do it."