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Bartholomew County remains on pace to see its first annual decline in overdose deaths in several years, county records show.
As of Wednesday, there had been 16 overdose deaths in the county this year, according to updated figures from the Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office. By comparison, there had been 33 overdose deaths at the same point last year.
Currently, Bartholomew County is on pace for roughly 20 fatal overdoses this year, which would be the lowest annual death toll since 2018, when there were 17 overdose deaths.
The county has seen record overdose deaths in each of the past three years, including a record 39 deaths last year. There were just six overdose deaths in the county in 2015.
Local officials said it is hard to say exactly what may be driving the decrease in overdose deaths so far this year, though they suspect that it is likely a combination of factors ranging from increased availability of naloxone, a nasal spray that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, to increased capacity for treatment and awareness of fentanyl, a potent opioid that has become increasingly being cut with other drugs, including counterfeit pills.
Officials at Columbus Regional Health’s Treatment and Support Center, TASC, said fentanyl appears to be as prevalent as ever in the illicit drug supply in Bartholomew County.
“We are definitely not seeing a reduction in the use of fentanyl,” said TASC Medical Director Dr. Kevin Terrell. “We have new patients — and sometimes established patients — who test positive for fentanyl every day. According to what our patients are telling us, the fentanyl they are using — sometimes unknowingly — is more often in counterfeit pills.”
Terrell urged people to not take any pills that they did not get from a pharmacy.
Bartholomew County Deputy Coroner Jay Frederick said the availability of naloxone has contributed to the decrease, while an increased awareness of the dangers of fentanyl also may have played some sort of role.
“I don’t think there’s a single factor to explain the decline in drug deaths in Bartholomew County,” Frederick said. “I think people are beginning to believe in the lethality of fentanyl. The more the epidemic plays out, the more people realize that putting an unknown substance into their body may the last thing they do.”
Frederick, however, cautioned that naloxone may provide a false sense of security and result in people putting off calling 911 in the event of an overdose. Some types of fentanyl can be so potent that there is still a risk of overdose after naloxone has worn off.
Bartholomew County Sheriff Chris Lane said “that number going down is a positive” but emphasized that officers are still frequently being dispatched to potential overdoses.
“We’ve still got a way to go in my opinion,” Lane said. “…I don’t want people to think that we had these big record years and we had 30-plus (deaths) that we still don’t have a problem, because we still do have a problem. One (death) is too many.”
The update from county officials comes about two weeks after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released updated projections, estimating that just over 112,000 people in the United States died from overdoses during the 12-month period ending in May. That would amount to an increase from the estimated 109,261 deaths during the same 12-month period the year before.
In Indiana, estimated overdose deaths declined about 9.7% during the 12-month period ending in May compared to the same period the previous year.
The CDC’s predicted overdose deaths represent estimates that are adjusted for incomplete reporting.
As of Wednesday, overdose deaths in Bartholomew County were down this year about 51% compared to the same point last year. However, some local officials still fear that the decline seen so far this year may just be temporary.
“I’m reluctant to get too excited about this year’s reduction in overdose deaths,” Terrell said. “…My worry is that we’ll see a return to what has been the norm in 2024.”
