According to data released earlier this month by Harm Reduction Ohio, Adams County ranked number 16 in Ohio for drug overdoses in 2020.
By Ashley McCarty
People’s Defender
According to data released earlier this month by Harm Reduction Ohio, Adams County ranked number 16 in Ohio for drug overdoses in 2020.
Harm Reduction Ohio is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Granville, Ohio, that supports drug policies based on science, health, compassion and human rights. They are the largest distributor of naloxone (Narcan) in Ohio.
Topping the list for overdoses in 2020 was Scioto County with 140.7 overdoses per 100,000. Adams County was 54.2 per 100,000.
In a similar vein, Harm Reduction Ohio reported the volume of naloxone kits supplied by the state government since 2018. In 2018, 38,756 were supplied annually; in 2019, 57,992 kits annually. In 2020, 137,769 kits.
Through March of this year, 33,151 kits have already been distributed.
As reported by the CDC, over 81,000 overdose deaths occurred in the United States in the 12 months ending in May 2020. This is the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period, according to the provisional data from the CDC.
While overdose deaths were already increasing in the months preceding the pandemic, the numbers provided by the CDC suggest an acceleration of overdose deaths during the pandemic.
In Adams County, organizations have assembled to combat the rampant substance epidemic. Coalition for a Drug-Free Adams County, headed by Director Randy Chandler, formed in 2015.
“I could see the impact of drugs, how they were affecting youth and children. I was doing some other projects and was seeing that, and then speaking with [Sheriff] Kimmy Rogers, I got some more insight. I wanted to bring people together to see how we could address the problem so children wouldn’t be impacted so much. Children are the losers in all this, in the majority of cases. I know there’s a lot of debate over whether it’s an addiction or a choice. It didn’t matter what it was labeled, I just knew that it was impacting lives. I’m not concerned about labeling things,” said Chandler.
The coalition is comprised of five different subcategories, with prevention being the biggest component.
“There’s a lot of aspects of drugs that end up impacting our youth. It’s not necessarily the drugs, but it’s as a result of the drugs. The children can be used and abused, and that’s the sad part of a lot of this. You hear about a lot of trafficking of children, women and men,” said Chandler.
Through an abundance of collaborations and grant opportunities, the coalition aims to join the local war against drugs.
“I’m not surprised [by the increase in overdoses]. If you think about it, probably the biggest issue is the environment the individual is in. They’re trapped in that with the pandemic. In treatment programs, you try to prevent that individual from going back to their original environment, and if you’re continually in that environment, it makes sense that data would go up. There’s [also] no regulation of these drugs coming through and the potency of them. People aren’t ready for that, their bodies can’t handle it. That doesn’t surprise me that those numbers are up,” said Chandler.
The coalition is working to embed a roadmap that details the steps an individual can take on their journey to recovery from beginning to end.
“We’re still working towards that, but there’s not a lot of facilities here to do that in the county. There’s just so much to this, it’s so complicated. It makes your head hurt when you try to think through how we deal with all of this. It takes a lot of time, and it’s not a one-size-fits-all, either. I’ve been to different facilities. The former governor of Kentucky has some facilities that they’ve been operating that are non-profit facilities, but the laws are different in Ohio, so they’ve been communicating with Columbus to try and figure out how to make all of that work so we can utilize their pipeline of resources and develop something locally here with that,” said Chandler.
As the pandemic continues, continuing to isolate people could contribute to the trend, he said.
“I’m hoping the worst of the pandemic is over and we can start getting back to more normal activities, but that still doesn’t mean the overdoses won’t go up. It’s just hard to predict. The age that [Kimmy] is seeing coming through the jail is not a younger group, it’s older. There’s so much to this, so many different aspects. You’d have to pick a path and follow that to the end to find out the right answers. There’s a lot of communities in Ohio and Kentucky that are working on these different aspects, and that’s where the collaborations come in to try and find out who’s found the best practice, and then let’s utilize it,” said Chandler.
One way the community could arm itself against the epidemic is through education.
“A lot of it is education; stigmas and education around stigmas. From my experience, what I’ve seen with all of this — in our community and in other communities — the drugs are there whether you know it or not. Knowing that there is a treatment facility makes it more apparent that that is what’s there — the reality is it could be your next-door neighbor. They’re doing the same thing, they’re having people come in, they’re dealing drugs out of their house, they’re making drugs in their house, and you don’t even know it. Those things can go on, too,” said Chandler.
Locally, there has been a lot of frustration surrounding drug treatment facilities.
“I don’t know how to fix that problem. You can’t make someone do the treatment, they have the choice not to do that or they can leave whenever they want and that’s a lot of the issue. If you bring people from outside our area to that facility and they decide they don’t want to do treatment anymore and just walk out, where are they going to go? They don’t have any money. So, there need to be different rules or something that would help clarify some of that,” said Chandler.
Chandler continues to think of the families impacted by the choices that occur from substance abuse.
“Years ago, someone would get injured, so they’d get these pills and they’d get addicted. The pills would get too expensive, so then they have to go get them on the street. That’s how it starts for some. For others, it’s because of the mental health aspect of it. It’s really come to the forefront, especially in our remote rural areas. The health department and [Judge] Brett Spencer through collaboration with UC Health [now] have telepsychiatry. Most people have a dual diagnosis; they’ve got both the addiction and the mental health aspect,” said Chandler.
Life can be hard, and we have to lead our youth, he said.
“We have to teach kids how to be resilient when things don’t go their way. If you turn to something else to help you deal with that, that’s not the best way to do it. There’s a lot of programs on the prevention side to try to get into the schools to help them with coping skills. Unfortunately, a lot of the home environments don’t help that either in our area,” said Chandler.
Fortunately, a lot of community leaders are doing great things for youth and adults.
“We need to bring all of those together and look at what everybody does best and put together a community gameplan which falls a lot under prevention. We’re headed that way, it just takes so long to get to the end. That’s the issue with the prevention, too, as far as funding goes. Politicians don’t want to fund prevention because it’s such a long-term fix that they don’t get to beat their chest over those results in a short term. They don’t want to give that money away because it doesn’t really help them with their election campaigns because the fruit of that it’s going to be years down the road,” said Chandler.
Coalition for a Drug-Free Adams County meets monthly.
“We were growing well until COVID-19 hit. Not as many people participate in virtual meetings. We’re trying to figure out how we want to move forward. If the community wants to get involved, [we have many branches such as prevention], treatment, advocacy, and a few others. There’s always something that you can do. If you’re bored setting in the house there are more productive things you can do in the community,” said Chandler.
At the Adams County Health Department, Health Commissioner Dr. William Hablitzel has experienced the woes of substance abuse through his longstanding medical career.
“It’s hard to be in medicine and not have encountered substance abuse, particularly in a long career. More so in the last few years, and I think that speaks to how much substance abuse, the opioid addiction, now the shift to stimulants has affected particularly rural areas,” said Hablitzel.
While the statistics show an alarming rate of overdoses through 2020, it could be worse.
“Often, depending on where the data comes from, as horrible as those numbers sound it may even be worse. Data that a lot of times is dependent on what is written on the death certificate, sometimes you don’t know, or sometimes we haven’t done the blood test to confirm it, and then those are categorized as a different kind of death. So, sometimes we actually under-count the number. Those statistics show it’s a horrible problem, and the statistics may not tell the whole extent of the problem,” said Hablitzel.
As anticipated, the pandemic has caused a lot of duress to communities.
“A lot of people have struggled with emotional pressures and social pressures. So, this has had a big toll on mental health. Mental health disorders and substance use disorders are intimately linked. Depending on which study you look at, there can be anywhere from 60 to 90 percent co-diagnosis; in other words, both problems occur at the same time. That makes treating this problem particularly hard because if you don’t treat both of them at the same time, you don’t treat either one of them. So, whether it is through the depression and anxiety of the pandemic, all of the anger, the protests throughout the country, the worry and fear of getting it, or it affecting someone you love, you combine all of that with a desire to feel better and maybe self medicate,” said Hablitzel.
Often, people will reach to a substance to feel better, he said.
“Without some form of intervention, I think [the trend] will [continue]. It may even get worse. We certainly know mental health disorders are often triggered and made worse by trauma. When you look at children in particular where we talk a lot about trauma-informed care, we know that through studies children that have been touched by trauma growing up are at much higher risk of mental health and substance abuse issues. So, not only am I concerned about what’s going to happen in 2021, but I’m concerned about what’s going to happen when these children that have been through the increased trauma we’ve seen in the past year grow up. So, the only way that we’re going to avoid or prevent this from getting worse is to work hard and try to get care for the children and adults as well,” said Hablitzel.
There a couple of ways the community can be proactive, he said.
“With the first one, we’re not going to see results right away. That’s through prevention. That’s through dealing with children particularly and young adults. In that, we’re talking about school. Working at things that we’ve been working on for a while here in this county, and partnering with the schools in life skills and curriculum. The teacher is going through training and all the schools have been trauma-informed, so we’ll actually have trauma-informed schools which are being proactive in being preventative,” said Hablitzel.
The second component of community proactivity is education.
“More of parents and the community. Just to provide information, like what we’ve been talking about today with the linkage between mental health and substance use. This problem touches all aspects of society. People that have a lot of money, people that have no money. So, it’s just not one segment of society. Those that may not look kindly on someone that may be suffering from substance abuse could very well find themselves in a situation where a close family member or friend may deal with the same problem,” said Hablitzel.
We have to look into our souls and see what’s best for our community, he said.
“How can we be the best possible person to someone else? That’s not a medical answer. This problem is going to have to be dealt with on a community level because it’s a community problem,” said Hablitzel.
