Tuesday, June 20, 2017
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Trumbull County Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention expects as many as 100 of its participants to fan out over parts of Warren and Niles in the coming weeks to pass out opiate-abuse information door to door.
The group will place door hangers in the two Trumbull County ZIP codes with the highest percentage of overdoses – 44483 in Warren and 44446 for Niles.
“The door hanger has information about how to recognize the signs and symptoms of an overdose,” said Lauren Thorp, project director of ASAP. “We also want to educate the community about proper drug disposal and Project DAWN – a free naloxone distribution program through the Trumbull County Combined Health District.”
The project was scheduled to begin today, but it was canceled because the hangers were not shipped by the printer, Thorp said in a news release Monday.
Thorp said the group plans to distribute more than 5,000 door hangers in those areas in the effort to reduce the number of overdoses.
One of the key things for people to know is they should get rid of excess medications in the home, Thorp said. That will prevent someone from stealing dangerous drugs and abusing them.
People with excess medications also are at higher risk of becoming a victim of burglary, Thorp said.
Thorp has a list of recent Trumbull County overdoses by ZIP code, and the highest number is in the 44483 area, which includes the east side of Warren and extends northwest into Champion Township.
Second was the Niles ZIP code; followed by 44485, which is the west side of Warren; and 44484, which is in Howland Township and southeast Warren.
Thorp said the coalition is relying on law enforcement to direct participants onto streets where the problem is the most acute. For instance, several streets just north of downtown will be targeted, including Porter, Scott and Washington streets.
Jerry Wheeler, 55, who lives on Porter with his wife, Barbara, said he can verify the problem was serious last fall on Washington Street where they lived at the time.
In the same week, a 30-year-old man overdosed and died in one of the four apartments in the home. And a 23-year-old woman died in another of the units.
“We were like, ‘Wow,’” Jerry Wheeler said.
Meanwhile, the Trumbull County Combined Health District has released statistics showing 107 people died from drug overdoses in the county in 2016 from among 1,267 overdoses.
The health district distributed 233 naloxone kits to the public and 228 to police and fire departments. Of the 228, 134 were used by those agencies.
Of those, 130 were successful reversals of opiate overdoses, and four were attempts that failed to revive a person.
There are now 14 police departments and a fire department carrying naloxone, including two police departments that recently started doing it – Fowler and Howland.
Of those people who died of overdoses so far in 2017, nearly two-thirds died with some form of fentanyl in their system. Fentanyl is a potent, synthetic opioid pain medication.
Sixty-four percent were found to have a form of fentanyl and other drug combinations. Thirty-two percent had heroin, and the other 4 percent had combinations of other drugs, including cocaine, benzodiazepene, alcohol and oxycodone.
Trumbull County will have a drug drop-off day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 23 at the Trumbull Geauga Solid Waste Management District on Enterprise Drive.
There also are permanent drop-off locations that can be accessed during office hours at the Bazetta, Brookfield, Champion, Hubbard, Hubbard Township and Liberty police departments. Drop-offs at the Kinsman Township Police Department are by appointment.