Thursday, December 13, 2018
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Trumbull County drug overdose deaths increased in number in the second half of this year, as fentanyl, cocaine and heroin – generally in combinations – continue to kill.
The number of overdose deaths during the first six months of the year dropped to about five per month.
But the most recent statistics from the county coroner’s office show the number rose to about 7.5 per month from July through October.
The average was 11.25 overdose deaths per month during 2017, when the total reached a record 135.
Through Nov. 3 of this year, the county had 61 overdose deaths. The coroner’s office suspects that another seven are likely to be ruled that way when toxicology results return from the state crime lab.
Fentanyl is apparently the chief killer, with 11 of the 61 deaths being from fentanyl alone. Another 36 deaths were attributable to fentanyl in combination with other drugs. A few others died from heroin, Oxycodone or cocaine alone.
In August, a Girard man, 45, died with all these drugs in his system: cocaine, ethanol, hydrocodone, oxycodone, diazepam, citalopram, trazodone and fentanyl.
In a Saturday night traffic stop at Burton Street and Willard Avenue Southeast, police confiscated a glass crack pipe from a city man, 31, with a white, rocklike substance inside; a bag containing hypodermic needles and a metal spoon with a dried, brown substance on it; a second glass crack pipe; another spoon with a dried, brown substance on it; and two piles of steel wool, which is used to make a filter while smoking drugs in a crack pipe.
The other person in the car was a woman, 28, of Southington, who was driving on a suspended license.
Lt. Greg Hoso, commander of the Warren Police Street Crimes Unit, says he sees three drugs – fentanyl, crack cocaine and heroin – being confiscated the most in similar quantities.
Hoso says there’s been an increase in use of crack cocaine and cocaine in Warren in the past year.
But the trend that concerns the people he meets with through the Trumbull County Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention is the inclusion of fentanyl in the crack cocaine and heroin users are buying.
“What you think you’re buying is not what you are using,” Hoso said of drug users. Because fentanyl causes overdoses, the inclusion of fentanyl can be deadly, Hoso said.
In some recent overdose death cases, the toxicology results have came back with “just a variety of ingredients,” Hoso said.
That’s one reason Warren police typically do not “field test” confiscated drugs with their own equipment very often anymore, Hoso said. “You don’t know what you are touching.”
Though county overdose deaths have dropped this year compared to last year, Hoso says he doesn’t believe drug use has dropped.
Greater use of the opiate-reversal drug naloxone and greater awareness of the danger are some of the reasons for fewer deaths, Hoso said.