The grip of addiction guarantees the drug cartels stay in business, Mannix said.
“If you think of it as businessmen from the cartels’ standpoint, you’ve got somebody hooked on cocaine, not quite the same addictive level that the opioids are, so when you sell them some cocaine, you mix a little opioid in there and now they are addicted,” Mannix said.
The Butler County coroner’s office handled 72 overdose deaths in 2008; 118 in 2013; and 233 last year. The coroner had 485 total cases last year. As of the end of August there have been 107 confirmed overdoses, but the coroner’s office said it has several suspected overdose cases still awaiting toxicology confirmation.
There was only one confirmed methamphetamine overdose death a couple years ago, but last year there were 45. So far this year there have been 22, according to Scott Rasmus, executive director of the Butler County Mental Health and Addiction Recovery Services Board.