Opiod-related deaths in Athens County break the trend of recent CDC reports, not following a decrease in the number of deaths.
Recently, the CDC published statistics reporting a 15% overall decrease in the amount of opioid-related overdoses nationally from May 2023 to May 2024, and an approximate 22% decrease within Ohio.
While death decreases may be true nationally, it is not true for Athens, as it is experiencing an uptick in deaths related to opioid usage.
Athens City-County Health Department Administrator Jack Pepper said in 2022, there were a reported 26 opioid overdose deaths; however, in 2023, there were 33 opioid-related deaths reported, and 2024 is on track to have a similar number in the low to mid 30’s.
Pepper said there have been some fluctuations in the last five years, but at the moment, the county is in an uphill swing.
“We’ve made some headway in educating our using community about Narcan and drug reversals and how those work,” Pepper said. “I would say that we’ve made some headway in even outreach in terms of connecting and humanizing the drug-using population.”
Pepper said what the health department is finding is that it doesn’t always necessarily equate to the desired outcome of fewer overdose deaths.
Opioids are a class of synthetic drugs including OxyContin, Vicodin and Fentanyl, which were created in the 19th century, but many were marketed as prescription pain relievers by Purdue Pharma in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
While drug use continues to be a problem throughout the U.S., the Appalachian region has been disproportionately affected by the marketing and spread of these opioids.
According to the National Association of Counties and the Appalachian Regional Commission, opioid overdose death rates in Appalachia were roughly equal to the rest of the country at the turn of the century, but by 2017, the rate of these deaths became 72% higher in Appalachia than any other region.
This means that for every 100,000 residents of Appalachia, 24 people overdosed on opioids.
“The Appalachian Region has a long history of coal mining,” Ava Hamilton, a previous intern at ARC, said. “It was a very, very, very dangerous occupation. And because it was so dangerous, this was the hub for dumping opioids into because people just kept getting injured.”
Hamilton also emphasized what kinds of people are being affected most by this epidemic.
“It’s a lot of innocent people that fell on hard times, and they got addicted to a drug,” Hamilton said. “They get in a car accident, they hurt their leg, and now they take their prescribed opioids, and now they’re addicted.”
Now that Purdue Pharma has been held liable for its involvement in the opioid epidemic, opioids are prescribed much less frequently; however, the US, and especially the Appalachian region, are still dealing with the effects.
People are more often turning to the streets for drugs instead of the doctor’s office, where fentanyl is introduced.
The Athens County-City Health Department is combating this issue with programs like the Harm Reduction Program. The program allows people to attend once-a-week meetings where they can access mental health counselors, healthcare services, food distribution and reversal drugs like Narcan.
They also run a needle syringe exchange program where people can get clean needles. The Health Department was also one of the founding members of Athens Hope, a local drug education and advocacy group.
Going forward, the Health Department is putting a deeper focus on “casual users” who may not realize the consequences of occasional drug use.
“We’re spending a lot of time trying to develop talking points and pathways to connect with populations of people that might be casual users,” Pepper said. “What we don’t want is for people to just not have that information at their disposal because in our opinion one overdose death like that is one too many.”
