Wisconsin suffers from a shortage of opioid treatment providers. With a shortage of treatment options, individuals are left with few options but to keep using.
In August, 2016, as reported by Crocker Stephenson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, twenty people have died of probable heroin overdoses in
Milwaukee County in the past two weeks, a toll the county medical examiner’s office called unprecedented.
This county of almost 1 million residents typically averages one heroin death every three days, the office said
Thursday. The medical examiner is investigating the possibility that other drugs, such as fentanyl, played a role
in the deaths.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opiate similar to morphine, but it can be 40 to 50 times more powerful than street heroin.
It is particularly deadly when mixed with other drugs.
As of July 1, 39 people died in the state’s most populous county from fentanyl-related overdoses, nine more fentanyl deaths than during all of 2015 —
which was itself a record.
The problem is enormous
and growing, and all of our citizens need to wake up to these facts.Chuck Rosenberg, DEA
Heroin-related deaths also continue to rise, according to the medical examiner’s office. So far this year, 61 deaths have been recorded, compared with
110 in 2015. The total number of drug-related deaths so far this year is 143, compared with a record 255 deaths in 2015.
“We tend to overuse words such as ‘unprecedented’ and ‘horrific,’ but the death and destruction connected to heroin and opioids is indeed unprecedented
and horrific,” Chuck Rosenberg, acting administrator of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, said earlier this summer. “The problem is enormous
and growing, and all of our citizens need to wake up to these facts.”
Nationally, use of heroin has risen dramatically in the past decade, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Heroin deaths
have tripled since 2010, the Drug Enforcement Administration said.
Among young adults ages 18 to 25, heroin use more than doubled. Across the USA, 10,574 people died from heroin overdoses in 2014, the most recent year that statistics are available. Deaths from the drug increased sixfold from 2001 to 2014 and increased 26% from just 2013 to 2014.
Overdose deaths related to synthetic opioids, which includes fentanyl, soared by 80% between 2013 and ’14, CDC data shows. The center put deaths related to synthetic opioids other than methadone at roughly 5,500 nationally in 2014.
Overdose deaths related to synthetic opioids, which includes fentanyl, soared by 80% between 2013 and ’14, CDC data showsCDC
Elsewhere, the problem of heroin-related overdose deaths is equally grim:
• In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where Cleveland is the largest city, had 47 heroin overdose deaths in July and 15 the first week in August, according to
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer. That county, home to more
than 1.2 million people, has had more than 200 deaths so far this year.
• In all of New Hampshire, where 1.3 million people live, more than 113 people as if July 8 have died from overdoses from fentanyl, heroin or a
combination of the two, WEVO-FM, Concord, reported.
• In Horry County, S.C., where Myrtle Beach is the signature city, four or five heroin deaths a week are translating to more than 20 a month, WBTW-TV,
Myrtle Beach-Florence, reported. Since January,
emergency crews have responded to more than 500 overdose calls in a county of about 300,000 residents.
• In Jefferson County, Ala., where Birmingham is located, 67 people died from either heroin, fentanyl or a combination of the two in the first six months
of 2016, The Birmingham News reported. The county has a
population of 660,000.
• Just on Staten Island, one of New York City’s five boroughs, 56 heroin overdose deaths had been reported this year through mid-July, according to the
Staten Island Advance. Naloxone, an antidote that counteracts an
opioid overdose, saved 20 users’ lives. The borough has about 475,000 residents.
National Opioid Treatment Gap
