Monday, April 13, 2015
Anyone who still doubts the heroin scourge in the Mahoning Valley is real needs only glance at its ghastly toll in one short week for a stark reality check.
During the first full week in April, Trumbull County logged 30 reported heroin overdoses and eight heroin-induced deaths. That chilling casualty count demands that all stand up, take notice and act — now.
Fortunately, the administration of Gov. John Kasich has done just that. In rapid response to the record Trumbull toll, administrative staff of the governor participated in a conference call with state Rep. Sean O’Brien of Bazetta, along with local law enforcement and drug-treatment officials, last week.
That conversation already has produced short-term aid and long-term hopes. In the short term, the state immediately will dispatch 500 Narcan kits, which contain the heroin antidote naloxone, to police and drug-treatment agencies. In the long term, both sides agreed to continue a needed and constructive dialogue.
Those developments bode well for reining in the heroin epidemic. The fight against it must remain aggressive and multipronged among law enforcers, drug-treatment providers and lawmakers at all levels of government.
The current spike in heroin overdoses and deaths has been attributed to a tainted batch of the opioid that was laced with the painkiller fentanyl, which is 80 times more potent than morphine. Carolyn Givens, executive director of the Valley’s Neil Kennedy Recovery Clinic, calls that combo a “double dose of disaster.”
To deal with the immediate escalated crisis, police agencies at all levels of government must work in overdrive to pinpoint the source of the tainted drug and apprehend its dealers.
FIGHTING THE EPIDEMIC
But even if one disregards the current fen- tanyl scare, heroin abuse has skyrocketed exponentially. The Ohio Department of Health reports a 366 percent increase in heroin deaths in the state since 2000.
Clearly this is no time to let down our guard. For police agencies and multijurisdictional law- enforcement task forces in the region, that means continued vigilance in apprehending and prosecuting dealers. Last December’s indictment of 63 people selling and using heroin in Greater Youngstown exemplified the power of teamwork in squeezing the supply of the killer drug.
It also means maximum training in the use of Narcan. Toward that end, Youngstown police officers last week joined the growing ranks of police agencies in the Valley receiving education on administering the drug, which has been used 74,000 times in Ohio between 2003 and 2013 as a literal lifesaver.
For their part, state legislators have a golden opportunity to increase public access to Narcan. House Bill 4, which passed unanimously in the House last month, would greatly expand its availability to the public. The state Senate should fast-track the bill to passage this month.
In addition, the dialogue that has begun between Trumbull County and state leaders on the epidemic should continue and broaden to other areas of the state. Brainstorming on a battery of strategies, ranging from increasing detox treatment facilities to lengthening sentences for dealers, merits constructive debate.
What’s more, heightened education and awareness campaigns that hit hard on the debilitating impact of heroin abuse should be mounted. To his credit, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, has re-introduced his 2014 bill this year to strengthen such efforts nationwide. It provides a series of incentives and resources designed to encourage states and communities to advance proven strategies to fight addiction and to fortify education efforts. Ryan’s compassionate and bipartisan initiative deserves speedy approval this time around.
Despite the grim and growing grip that heroin has inflicted on our community and nation, optimism toward marshalling sufficiently strong resources to fight the plague is building. With hard work and cooperation in tackling the epidemic on multiple fronts, we remain hopeful that 2015 will be the year in which the pain, the anguish and the devastation of heroin abuse at long last finally begins to ebb.