WVU researchers conclude fentanyl deaths in state continue to rise | WV News

MORGANTOWN — Researchers at WVU have said the number of deaths in West Virginia as a result of the synthetic opioid fentanyl is continuing to rise even amid a drop in prescription opioid overdose deaths.

Researchers Gordon Smith, Marie Abate and Zheng Dai reached the conclusion as part of a study of more than a decade’s worth of data, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health. 

The study analyzed drug-related deaths throughout the state between 2005 and 2017. Between 2015 and 2017, the number of deaths was 122 percent of the number of deaths between 2005 and 2014.

For those same timeframes, the researchers found the number of deaths by prescription opioids for the final three years was 75 percent of the number of the previous nine.

Smith, who is an epidemiologist in the university’s School of Public Health, attributed the more recent spike in fentanyl deaths to a surge in imports of the drug from China.

“Up until then, people who were shifting from legal prescription drugs to illegal drugs were shifting to heroin and opioids coming in from Mexico and other places,” he explained. “But then people started manufacturing fentanyl in China, setting up clandestine labs, staying one step ahead of drug-enforcement agencies.”

He also identified the potency of the drug as another contributing factor. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.

“You might need to take — let’s say — 200 Tylenol before you get into some serious trouble, but with some other pain reliever, you might only need four of them because it’s so much stronger,” Smith said.

Because of this potency, even small amounts of fentanyl can be deadly.

Citing data from the CDC, the researchers pointed out that the increase in fentanyl deaths, and specifically the spike around 2015, is a trend that was seen nationwide. 

However, West Virginia has the highest number of fentanyl-related deaths as well as the highest per-capita rate of overall overdose deaths, according to the CDC.

Smith said dealing with and attempting to decrease overdose deaths from fentanyl is a difficult problem to solve because of the potent nature of the drug.

“One of the proven ways to reduce overdoses is to decrease the number of people who are addicted and using. But with fentanyl, you could halve the number of addicts in West Virginia, and the overdose rate could still go up because the strength of the drug coming in is so much stronger and can vary widely from one day to the next,” he said. “This is an absolute quandary.”

One recommendation he made was to increase distribution of naloxone, a medication used to reverse the effects of a drug overdose, including to injection drug users and their families as well as ensuring first responders have adequate supplies.