Fentanyl is ‘killer right now’ | Local

EASTON — Talbot County consisted of nearly 37,000 people in 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The county is home to historic downtowns, vast rural areas and waterfront towns, and is situated between Washington, D.C., and Ocean City.

However, addiction does not discriminate. Drug overdoses killed eight people in 2017 in Talbot County, a decrease from 10 deaths the year prior. From 2007 to 2017, there were 47 deaths in Talbot County from drug overdoses, according to a 2017 report from the Maryland Department of Health, Behavioral Health Administration.

The Talbot County Sheriff’s Office and Sheriff Joe Gamble are known for extensive outreach through Talbot Goes Purple, a substance abuse awareness program. The community celebrated the initiative’s second year last September.

Some wonder whether the initiative correlates with the county’s tapering fatal overdoses. Gamble said it is far too soon to tell and pointed to Narcan training as a better explanation.

Commonly sold under the brand name Narcan, naloxone is a lifesaving medication that reverses an opioid overdose yet has no abuse potential. It is easy to use and is available over the counter without a prescription.

“It wasn’t until three-and-a-half years ago that the (Talbot County) Sheriff’s Office, Easton Police and Maryland State Police actually carried Narcan,” Gamble said.

Since then, the Talbot County Health Department Prevention Office has received a grant to administer Narcan training. It is a one-time training that typically takes 15 to 20 minutes.

Logan Harris, Talbot County Health Department-Prevention Services, Community Health educator, said about 40 training sessions have been administered in the past fiscal year. These trainings range from individuals to entire companies (which still count as a single training). Harris and Beth Williams, Talbot County Health Department-Prevention Services, Mid-Shore Opioid Misuse Prevention Program coordinator, have been conducting most of the Narcan trainings.

“We just have a passion for it, and we love getting out into the community,” Harris said.

Police, citizens, parents and even Easton High school students in the Talbot Goes Purple club have undergone training. Harris said real estate agents have been getting trained due to instances of clients going through medicine cabinets during open house viewings.

While Narcan training is helping to save lives immediately, Gamble said he hopes Talbot Goes Purple’s educational messages will catch up so people decide against using hard drugs.

According to the BHA report, the number of drug- and alcohol-related intoxication deaths occurring in Maryland increased in 2017 for the seventh year in a row, reaching an all-time high of 2,282 deaths. This represented a 9% increase over the 2,089 deaths in 2016. However, this increase was substantially less than the 66% increase that occurred between 2015 and 2016, which was the largest single-year increase that has been recorded.

Large increases in the number of fentanyl-related deaths were responsible for the overall rise in opioid-related deaths. Between 2016 and 2017, the number of fentanyl-related deaths increased by 42% (from 1,119 to 1,594). The number of heroin-related deaths declined by 11% between 2016 and 2017 (from 1,212 to 1,078). The number of prescription-opioid related deaths decreased by 1% (from 418 to 413); many of these deaths occurred in combination with heroin and/or fentanyl.

Fifty-three percent of fentanyl-related deaths in 2017 occurred in combination with heroin, 31% in combination with cocaine and 20% in combination with alcohol.

“Fentanyl is really the killer right now,” Gamble said.

The overall increase in cocaine-related deaths is largely the result of deaths occurring in combination with opioids. Seventy-one percent of cocaine-related deaths in 2017 occurred in combination with fentanyl and 50% in combination with heroin.

Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Drug dealers use fentanyl to cut all types of drugs,” Gamble said, reflecting on a non-fatal overdose from two years ago in a local fast food parking lot. The user had taken cocaine without knowing it contained fentanyl, too.

BHA also released statewide preliminary data for the first quarter of 2018. From January to March of last year, 579 opioid-related deaths occurred in Maryland (compared to 482 deaths in the first quarter of 2017).

“It doesn’t surprise me that the 2018 numbers are still going up, as they will in 2019 too across the state,” Gamble said.

Though there is no acceptable overdose number, Gamble said the number of prescription opioid-related deaths in Maryland from January to March last year stayed level with 2017 at 104.

“We’re starting to get it, but this is going to take years,” he said.