At least 15 people died from drug overdoses in Columbus. Can Naloxone stop the trend?

At least 15 people have died from drug overdoses in Columbus already this year, according to Muscogee County Coroner Buddy Bryan.

Another 15 cases are still pending toxicology reports, which means the number of confirmed cases could more than double over the next few months.

Of the already confirmed cases, 67 percent of the overdoses were from opioid drugs - five from heroin, three from Fentanyl, one from morphine and one from Dilaudid. The rest were from other addictive substances - three from methamphetamine, one from cocaine and one from the sleeping medication Eszopiclone.

Officials at the Muscogee County Adult Drug Court hope to reduce the number of deaths by equipping all Columbus first responders with the opioid overdose reversal drug Naloxone, otherwise known as Narcan.

Court Coordinator Dayna Solomon said she recently applied for a $500,000 grant through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The grant would provide $125,000 annually over a four-year period for the county to implement the First Responder Naloxone Project. Solomon said she hopes to have the funding by Oct. 1.

Solomon described the opioid situation in Columbus as “critical and chronic.”

“The drug court has seen at least a 40 percent increase in the number of opioid addicts that we take in,” she said. “We hear daily of an overdose, whether it’s a friend of somebody in the program, somebody in the program, somebody who knows somebody in the program, whatever the case may be.

“Not all overdoses end in death,” she said. “ ... but there is definitely an abundance of overdoses, and any of those could end in death. So it’s highly serious.”

Nationally, drug overdoses are the leading cause of death for people under 50, according to a recent New York Times report. Reviewing state and county death records, the newspaper discovered that 62,000 people had died from overdoses in 2016 — a 19 percent increase from 2015.

Over two million Americans are assumed to be dependent on opioids and another 95 million used prescription painkillers in the past year, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health from 2015.

Solomon said overdoses from methamphetamine and other substances are rare, and most local overdoses are from opioids.

“Opioids are so easy to overdose on,” she said. “Typically, an addict’s most dangerous time is after any period of sobriety. So if you have a heroin addict who’s been clean for 30 days and they just make one not smart choice, one momentary lapse in judgment, typically that individual will use the same amount that they use to use. But they don’t understand that that amount, after 30 days of sobriety, can end their lives now.

“Typically, you see overdoses after a person has been incarcerated, or they’ve been in long-term treatment, or after they’ve just had a couple weeks of clean time,” she said, “because it’s that first relapse that really gets to be dangerous.’

Currently, some Fire and EMS personnel in Muscogee County have Naloxone in their vehicles, Solomon said, but the law enforcement officers do not. She said the goal of the grant is to put the reversal drug in every law enforcement vehicle in the county to save lives.

Solomon said Fentanyl is a highly dangerous, potent drug that can be airborne. Officers that pull over someone on Fentanyl could overdose instantly upon contact.

“Naloxone is not only to save the lives of the citizens that they come across who might be experiencing an overdose, but also in the event the officers come across something like yellow (Percocet) or Fentanyl, they would have that to help save themselves and their fellow officers as well,” she said.

Additionally, the project will include community training for the relatives of addicts and provide Naloxone kits to some families.

“While we’re still working to get a handle on the opioid crisis nationally, on a state level and locally, our goal is to save lives,” Solomon said. “Right now, for me, I felt one of the best things I could do was get this life-saving medication out (in the community) so we could save lives in the meantime.”

This story was originally published September 6, 2017 at 9:38 AM with the headline "At least 15 people died from drug overdoses in Columbus. Can Naloxone stop the trend?."