OPIOID STATISTICS: BY THE NUMBERS
21 percent – In 2011, more than 1 in 5 Ohio high school students reported using a prescription drug without a doctor's prescription one or more times. Of these teens, half used narcotic pain relievers. Eight of 10 teens who misuse prescription drugs get them from friends or relatives.
692 million – In 2010, 692 million opioid doses were distributed to retail pharmacies in Ohio. That's enough to provide 60 opioid doses to every single Ohioan.
86 percent – Of Ohio's fatal drug overdoses from 2009-2011, 86 percent (4,732) were unintentional.
5 deaths – In 2011 in Ohio, there were five overdose deaths per day. In 1999, that number was one.
440 percent – The increase in Ohio's unintentional drug poisonings from 1999 to 2011.
$3.5 billion – Unintentional fatal drug poisonings cost Ohioans $3.5 billion each year on average while non-fatal, hospital-admitted drug poisonings cost an additional $31.9 million per year.
Source: Ohio Dept. of Health
A look at the issue
Law enforcement officials and community leaders throughout southwest Ohio have not collectively tackled the prescription drug abuse crisis but they are all engaged in the battle. Here’s an example of some of the steps some counties are taking:
Montgomery: The county's Opiate Task Force and Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board has implemented study, education and programs to help reduce opiate overdoses.
Greene: The county does not have a task force, but officials at the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Clark, Greene and Madison counties
Clark: The county is in the beginning stages of forming a substance abuse coalition.
Warren: The county is six months into the process of forming a substance abuse coalition. The efforts included a heroin roundtable meeting with State Sen. Shannon Jones at the Franklin Fire Dept.
Butler: A rally and forum were held this year by Heroin Connect to bring awareness to the large amount of heroin overdoses in this county.
The growth of prescription pill use and the cheap cost of heroin means law enforcement’s battle with opiate-based drugs across southwest Ohio is fought on several fronts — from the streets to the schools, hospitals and courts.
Area police departments and sheriff’s offices see the opiate problems on the streets. And Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office estimates the number of area gangs has grown to 82 with most of them dealing in heroin and pain pills that end up in the hands of people in communities throughout southwest Ohio.
“That’s the big money-maker right now,” Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Dep. Mike Brem said. “If you’re not doing that, you’re probably not a big player in the game right now.
“A lot of your traffickers, they deal in all of it – the heroin, cocaine, prescription drugs. It’s a one-stop shop and if you can’t get it from him, he’ll put you on to somebody who can.”
Of the 162 opiate-related deaths in Montgomery County in 2012, 17 involved residents outside Montgomery County, including two from out of state. Five were from Greene County with two each from Miami, Clark, Preble and one each from Darke, Hamilton, Wood and Highland.
“It’s a significant issue, a greater problem than it used to be,” said Roselin Runnels, director of programs and communication at the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Clark, Greene and Madison counties. “We do think that being near the intersection of two major interstates does have an impact.”
Runnels said Clark County is forming a substance abuse coalition, Madison has had one for years and she’d be surprised if Greene County didn’t move in that direction. For the past six months, Warren County officials have been building a coalition of community leaders to tackle substance abuse.
In Butler County, a seven-member panel of representatives from law enforcement, medical services, courts, health officials, children services and churches led an April heroin summit at Miami University Middletown sponsored by the Coalition for a Healthy Middletown.
Judge Mark Wall from the Middletown Municipal Court said drug dealers “are killing our kids. Killing them… . It’s an epidemic.”
Centers for Disease Control statistics show 55 percent of prescription drugs abused come from cooperative friends or family and another 11.4 percent are purchased from a friend or relative. Only 4.4 percent comes from a dealer or stranger. Local officials said people are attending real estate open houses so they can go through medicine cabinets in search of pills.
Some addicts see the financial benefit of selling expensive opiate-based prescription pills and then buying cheap heroin capsules.
“Prescription drugs are the big segway for heroin,” Brem said. “You can take your prescription drugs, get an 80-milligram Oxy and you can sell that for anywhere from $80 to $160 per pill, depending on what market you’re in.”
Sheriff’s Dep. Rob Streck said the cheap price has put opiate-based drugs within reach of high school users. The Ohio Department of Health reports that in 2011, 21 percent of Ohio high schoolers reported using a prescription drug without a doctor’s prescription.
Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer said that unlike the days when illegal drugs first came into Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, Dayton has become a source city. Opiate-based drugs go from cartels right to local gangs who operate like businessmen.
Assistant United States Attorney Dwight Keller said the prosecution of traffickers is an ongoing job and crime associated with drug sellers and buyers spirals out into the community.
“Heroin has become, unfortunately, a very serious problem in the region. We need to address this kind of drug trafficking because the ramifications are really profound. It’s no secret that we have drug dealing, drug activity,” Keller said.
“You have other spin-off criminal activity with burglaries, break-ins, other acts of violence. It is a very serious problem that we take very seriously.”
The problem also has touched the health profession.
A former Good Samaritan Hospital nurse was fired last December for taking prescription pills meant for her patients. Andrea Leitschuh, a trained RN and LPN, faces disciplinary action from the Ohio Board of Nursing for admitting that she skimmed pills for five months. Earlier this year, seven registered nurses from the Toledo area were indicted on charges of stealing prescription medicine from their employers.
A Dayton police report indicates Leitschuh told an investigator that she suffered an injury, was prescribed opiate-based medicine and became addicted. An Ohio Board of Nursing document said Leitschuh falsely documented administration of narcotics to patients but diverted it for her own use.
Of the 8,028 complaints against the Ohio Board of Nursing in fiscal year 2013, 650 involved drugs or alcohol and 348 were of a criminal nature. The board’s statistics do not specifically break out prescription pill cases.
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