Drug overdoses in Bartholomew County have spiked during the first half this year, with law enforcement responding to twice as many overdose calls and local deaths at their highest pace in at least three years.
From Jan. 1 to May 25, there were 18 fatal drug overdoses in Bartholomew County, compared to 24 during all of 2019, according to the Bartholomew County Coroner’s office.
That puts the county on pace for roughly 36 overdose deaths this year, which would be the highest since at least 2017, when there were 30 deaths.
Columbus police were dispatched to 47 suspected overdoses from Jan. 1 to May 25, compared to 25 during the same period last year, the Columbus Police Department said.
A similar increase was also seen in the county, with the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department responding to 12 suspected overdoses during roughly the first half of this year, compared to five during the same stretch last year.
“2017 was our bad year, and that was pretty consistent across the state if you looked at other counties. We managed to dial that down significantly, but it’s creeping back up for sure,” said Bartholomew County Deputy Coroner Jay Frederick.
The figures have alarmed law enforcement officials, who say the rate of fatal overdoses so far this year shows that the opioid epidemic has not gone away “by any stretch of the imagination,” he said.
“We’re still in the middle of this opioid crisis that we’ve been struggling with for the last few years,” said Chief Deputy Maj. Chris Lane of the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department, who characterized the numbers as “alarming.”
“I knew it would be a high number, but I didn’t realize that we were on the path that we were on,” Lane added. “Those 18 (deaths) this year, that shocked me a little bit.”
Lt. Matt Harris, Columbus Police Department spokesman, said the numbers demonstrate the continuing challenges the community faces in combating substance abuse disorder.
“With the COVID-19 epidemic going on, everyone has focused in on that,” Harris said. “Things haven’t stopped on the law enforcement end, and overdoses, as these stats show, continue to be a challenge that the community is dealing with.”
Harris said CPD has seen an increase “in fentanyl and substances that are even stronger than heroin” this year, with some cases of drug users expecting to receive heroin from their dealers, but getting “straight fentanyl” instead.
Fentanyl is powerful synthetic opioid that is 80 to 100 times more potent than morphine and is often added heroin to increase its potency or disguise the drug as highly potent heroin, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says.
“People might think they’re getting a particular drug, while in reality not knowing what’s in it,” Harris said. “There have been times when people thought they were getting heroin, but it ended up being straight fentanyl and not heroin at all.”
“These substances are something that a person can use one time and it ends their lives,” Harris added.
Bartholomew County Sheriff’s deputies have seen what they believe is an increase in fentanyl being laced with other drugs and also that the drugs could be easier to get than in earlier years, Lane said.
Additionally, Lane said there have been instances of drug users and their peers self-medicating with naloxone, a medication designed to rapidly reverse an opioid overdose that is often sold under the brand name Narcan.
“That’s really the other unknown: How many ODs are taking place that we’re not getting dispatched to and EMS is not getting dispatched to because essentially they’re self-medicating because they can get Narcan?” Lane said. “I’m sure there are several ODs out there that we don’t know anything about because they’re administering the Narcan or are with someone who has Narcan.”
ASAP Executive Director Doug Leonard said the increase in fatal overdoses is “tragic,” and believes that the “desperation” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may have contributed to the increase
The pandemic has resulted in many people their jobs and homeless shelters and other services being closed or reduced in capacity. In addition, recovery meetings have been moved online or are being conducted over the phone, which presents challenges to people who do not have access to a phone or the internet.
The ASAP Hub, located in the Doug Otto Center at 1531 13th St., has been operating in a limited capacity since Gov. Eric Holcomb issued a statewide stay-at-home order in March to combat the spread of COVID-19 across the state.
People seeking help for substance abuse disorder, as well as their families, have been able call ASAP or contact the organization through its website, but ASAP stopped accepting walk-in clients after the governor’s stay-at-home order went into effect.
Leonard said ASAP plans to reopen the hub to walk-in clients on June 15.
“If you think about how everybody has been affected by this (pandemic), the people who had nothing before except just the services they could get themselves into or get a hold of and maybe they had the potential for a job, maybe they had a place to live, but I think in many ways, they’ve probably been hit the hardest,” Leonard said. “I think all those things contribute to those terrible statistics about overdoses and deaths.”
