The surge comes at a time when the overdose crisis had calmed in some areas after severe spikes several years ago. State and local officials said they saw a rise in methamphetamine-relate deaths, and a recent state alert about a new drug detected in some overdoses underlined the attention medical officials must give to changing dangers, they said.
The number of drug overdoses more than doubled from 2012 to 2017 in Butler County, according to the coroner’s office. There were 103 overdoses in 2012, and 232 in 2017, the highest in recent memory.
Then in 2018, for the first time since 2012, the number of ODs dropped to 164 deaths, with 135 opioid-related.
Hamilton County saw a spike in suspected overdoses over the weekend, when seven people died.
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On Sunday, the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition issued an alert after 15 people were hospitalized in 24 hours for apparent overdoses. There also were numerous calls to first responders for overdoses.
Newtown Police Chief Tom Synan, a coordinator with the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition, said officials suspect fentanyl mixed in heroin and cocaine are the main causes of the overdoses.
Hamilton County overdose deaths so far this year are at 157, compared to 177 by the end of May 2018, coroner’s records show.
This rise in overdoses is coming at the same time the Ohio Department of Public Safety is warning emergency medical service providers about the dangers of xylazine, a drug made for animals that is being used in illegally produced opioids.
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In an email that was sent recently to EMS providers, including those in Butler County, the state said preliminary analysis of death certificate data has identified three Ohio overdose deaths this year involving fentanyl and xylazine. However, many coroners may not include xylazine in their routine toxicology testing that would leave it “largely undetected” in this data, the email said.
While Butler County Coroner Dr. Lisa Mannix is aware of the detection of xylazine in some deaths in Ohio, no fatal overdoses involving xylazine are known to have occurred in Butler County, she said.
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Xylazine is legally administered to animals by veterinarians as a sedative and an analgesic. Unlike morphine, fentanyl, or carfentanil, xylazine is not a scheduled medication. That means a Drug Enforcement Administration license is not required to obtain xylazine, and this factor makes the drug “more readily accessible.”
Number of overdoses in Butler County by year
2012: 103
2013: 118
2014: 137
2015: 189
2016: 192
2017: 232
2018: 164
SOURCE: Butler County Coroner’s Office
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