County seeks federal help to expand drug-abuse battle

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

Ohio’s largest county is asking the federal government to waive rules that would make more publicly funded beds available for long-term drug treatment as it battles a growing epidemic of heroin and fentanyl abuse that has killed 200 people so far this year.

The Cuyahoga County executive released a letter sent last month to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that asks the agency to waive rules that limits Medicaid payments to only 16 beds in facilities that provide residential drug treatment.

Officials have predicted that the number of overdoses deaths attributed to heroin, fentanyl or a combination of the two this year could double 2015’s total of 228. Cuyahoga County had 45 fatal heroin-fentanyl overdoses in May and 50 in in March. Fentanyl, a synthetic opiate far more potent than heroin, has become an increasingly bigger problem in Ohio the last few years as Mexican cartels have ramped up production and import of the drug.

A Cuyahoga County spokeswoman said Friday that HHS officials have agreed to work with the county to address the waiver issue.

William Denihan, chief executive officer of Cuyahoga County’s Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board, called the county’s heroin and fentanyl crisis a “tsunami.”