Washington County suffers from drug and alcohol related deaths

HAGERSTOWN, MD. – Washington County is experiencing a 66 percent spike in drug and alcohol related deaths in the past two years, while the state of Maryland’s average is at 8 percent.

Washington County’s Health Department and Director of Behavioral Sciences Vicki Sterling believes that winning this battle starts with prevention.

“We have got to start educating our kids in the community about the dangers of prescription pain medications.” said Sterling. “80 percent of individuals that use and inject drugs started with prescription pain medication. So, we really need to start educating our youth or we are not going to win this battle and we are not going to make any footing on it.”

The increase could possibly be due to the drug fentanyl since it’s a pretty cheap drug for consumers. Fentanyl is a deadly painkiller that’s commonly being mixed with heroin, cocaine and marijuana. From 2016 to 2018, deaths related to fentanyl usage skyrocketed from 751 to 1449. 

Among the state’s 23 counties plus Baltimore City, Washington County is ranked 3rd at the most deaths. Whether the deaths are due to opioid or fentanyl overdoses, Clinical Service Worker at Brook Lane Amanda Barnhart believes that people don’t understand the seriousness of prescription drug abuse.

“Well I think it doesn’t start with fentanyl, there’s an overabundance of opioid pain prescriptions that’s been out there with a lack of education to patients about how serious these drugs are.” said Barnhart. “When those prescriptions are cut off, what are people to do besides turn to the street vendor, and the street vendors have started using fentanyl to cut their own costs.”

The fentanyl drug that’s being laced with other products isn’t a prescription or the common pain medication used on larger farm animals, it’s a synthetic being made on the streets.