By Patrick Reed | 2/22/17 5:00 AM

For Carl Varney in Greenup County, addiction began with marijuana and alcohol. Then he got in a car wreck in his mid-twenties and was prescribed opioid pain medication. “I already had an addiction in my life, and so for these to come in, a highly addictive substance, it took no time at all before I liked them.”

On the other side of the commonwealth in Paducah, Matt Lacefield was just a teenager when he began using opioids. “I really liked anything. Because I was young – 12, 13 years old when I really started using. OxyContin was my big thing when I was 13 years old,” he says. “It wasn’t until I got to 22 years old, I hit the bottom finally. I either had to change or something was going to change me, I knew it. It was no longer me saying it, it was just a fact.”

These young men are among the thousands of Kentuckians who have struggled with opioid use disorder over the past quarter-century. There are few, if any, people in the commonwealth who have not been affected by the opioid crisis. Since the 1990s, the crisis has grown alongside a national epidemic that claimed over 30,000 lives in 2015. Among the hardest hit states, Kentucky has also been a national leader in finding solutions to curb the epidemic.

Carl and Matt are currently in long-term recovery, each helped through different programs. Their stories are part of Journey to Recovery, a one-hour KET documentary that takes an in-depth look at the epidemic in Kentucky. Featuring interviews with national experts on opioids as well as Kentuckians on the front lines of the crisis, Journey to Recoveryexplains addiction as a brain disease and explores a variety of successful treatment and recovery programs in the state. The film is part of KET’s ongoing Inside Opioid Addiction initiative, funded in part by the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

Opioid Use Disorder: A Disease of the Brain
Opioids – whether prescription painkillers like oxycodone or hydrocodone, street drugs like heroin, or the newer, potent synthetic opioids like fentanyl – affect brain function in significant ways. Once in the bloodstream, an opioid travels to the brain and binds to widely distributed opioid receptors. When activated, these receptors release dopamine, the neurotransmitter that, among other things, regulates feelings of pleasure and euphoria.

The intense high associated with opioid use does not last, however. “With continued use, you get less dopamine release so the body gets used to it, it tries to adapt,” said Dr. Michelle Lofwall, a psychiatrist at the University of Kentucky. As the release diminishes, cravings for the drug increase and override a person’s rational decision making.

“The changes in the brain that are caused with repeated administration of these drugs have basically hijacked the circuitry into believing that this is a state of deprivation that, if not solved, will not allow you to survive,” said Dr. Nora Volklow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

“Addiction is clearly a disease,” said Dr. Stephen Kronenberg, director of the Renew Recovery Clinic in Georgetown. “It affects parts of the brain responsible for impulse control, motivation, and memory.” People addicted to opioids rarely can quit without help, and in recent years, more treatment and counseling options have become available across Kentucky to reach the same goal of recovery.

The Components of Successful Drug Treatment
In Clay County, Chad’s Hope offers an abstinence-only, faith-based counseling model for those seeking treatment for opioid use disorder. Carl Varney, whose drug abuse eventually brought him into the Greenup County court system, was admitted to Chad’s Hope and underwent the year-long rehabilitation program. The program’s courses in job and life skills training and its emphasis on accountability and Christian values changed his life.

“You have to give up, you have to surrender and let somebody help you,” he said. “Because you just can’t do it on your own, somebody has got to help you and that’s what treatment is all about.”

In Paducah, Matt Lacefield was admitted into another abstinence-based program, Centerpoint Recovery Center for Men. It adopts the 12-step program popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous, but does not explicitly promote Christian-oriented recovery. Matt is now a peer mentor who, along with Capt. Anthony Copeland of the Paducah Police Department and Dr. Patrick Withrow, conducts outreach into high schools to educate young people about opioid use disorder.

“A little over two years ago, I never could have dreamed of all of this,” Matt said. “I never could have dreamed I’d be the guy going to school. I’ve got my own vehicle, got my own apartment, got a girlfriend who loves me.”

“For me, the great miracle in this country is the 12-step programs,” said Dr. Robert DuPont, the first director of the National Institute for Drug Abuse in the 1970s. “Treatment is expensive; you’ve got government and insurance and all of those things, but recovery is free. You go to meetings and you work the program, and it makes a tremendous difference.”

Abstinence-based treatment models have worked for Carl and Matt, but others in the throes of opioid addiction struggle in that setting. Dr. Mark Jorrisch, medical director at the MORE Center in Louisville, supervises a clinic that provides medication-assisted treatment to patients. “When you look at the literature and the science, particularly with opioid use disorders – and I continue to look at opiates as just a different type of substance than these other drugs of addiction – it’s a very difficult problem and patients respond better in my estimation to the medications.”

The MORE Center provides a methadone-based treatment model, and other medication-based facilities in the state, such as Georgetown’s Renew Recovery, operated by Dr. Kronenberg, offer buprenorphine-based models. These programs do far more than just swap one form of opioid for another; they closely monitor patients and couple the drug treatment with a counseling program that strives to achieve immediate harm reduction as well as long-term recovery.

“I didn’t even smoke a cigarette before I turned 18 so I started later than a lot of people,” said Kyle, who visits the MORE Clinic in Louisville. “It started with your college partying. Opiates for me were definitely the drug of choice. It got to the point where I realized that I had to do something or I was going to end up killing myself from an overdose.”

Kyle comes into the MORE Center every day for treatment and believes that it has the right combination of stability, support, and assistance that he needs.

“I think people need to know that this might not be for everybody, but this is something that is saving lives and it has saved my life,” he said. “I can say that with a great measure of confidence. The methadone is not a magic medicine – it’s everything else that comes with it.”

Rethinking the Role of the Criminal Justice System 
“If Kentucky was a country, it would have one of the highest levels of incarceration in the world,” said Lawrence County District Judge John Holbrook. “So we are spending a fortune on incarcerating people especially who are what I would call the ‘but for’ test – that’s what we were taught in law school, but for the fact that they’re an addict, they would not be in the criminal justice system.”

The drug court system was established in 1989 and provides an alternative to incarceration for persons whose crimes are a direct result of their drug addiction.

“Drug courts are really a combination of compassionate, competent addiction treatment and common sense accountability,” said Terrence Walton, chief operating officer of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. “It works by including treatment providers and recovery support specialists who actually treat the real issues that underlie the criminal behavior. Some people see it as being soft on crime, but it’s really being smart on the issues that underlie crime.”

Most drug courts in Kentucky do not include medication-assisted treatment, but the Lawrence County drug court overseen by Judge Holbrook does. He supports medication-assisted treatment while acknowledging its critics, saying that he’s seen it give drug court enrollees the initial stability they need in order to move forward, complete their treatment program, and become fully rehabilitated and drug-free.

Many people convicted of drug-related crimes in Kentucky are not candidates for drug courts, and must serve time. Several prisons around the state are adopting innovative, comprehensive programs for drug offenders that shift the criminal justice goalposts toward proactive treatment in order to reduce recidivism. The Kenton County Detention Center is one such facility.

“Incarceration for way too long has just been ‘Let’s incarcerate the person and hope that something happens while they are in there, that they have a change of character that happens in some way because of their consequence,’” said Kenton County Detention Center clinical navigator Michael Greenwell. “Unfortunately, that hasn’t been a successful footprint. The Jail Substance Abuse Program is really a new footprint for the Kenton County area. Its primary goal is to help the addict recover from his addiction.”

The program at the Kenton County Detention Center includes GED classes, counseling based on the 12-step method, and an innovative re-entry program that offers participants who go through detox a shot of Vivitrol, a medication that blocks the recipient’s ability to get high from opioids for 30 days. This is given as the inmates are released, to assist them as they acclimate back into society.

“In a place that is seemingly hopeless and a lot of people would say, ‘I’m at the end of my rope,’ it’s a blessing to be able to offer treatment, valuable quality treatment to putting a stop to that revolving door we all hear about,” said Jason Merrick, director of inmate addiction services at Kenton County Detention Center. “You know bringing hope into a facility that is steel and concrete and letting these men and women know that they are worth it. They deserve help, they deserve treatment and care.”

Stories of Recovery, Empowerment, and Service
“Addiction is one of the most serious, most prevalent, often fatal diseases, and it needs to be managed for a lifetime,” said Dr. Robert DuPont. “Like diabetes is managed for a lifetime, like asthma is managed for a lifetime.”

Across Kentucky, persons committed to fighting the opioid epidemic have created support groups for those seeking recovery that offer a wide scope of services. They come from all walks of life. Some are families, such as the Elswicks in Lexington, who started Voices of Hope with their son Alex, who fought his addiction to opioids and is now a licensed therapist.

In Eastern Kentucky, Camp UNITE arose from the Operation UNITE anti-drug initiative and enlists counselors like Carl Varney to offer emotional support and motivation to the large number of at-risk children in the region who have relatives struggling with opioid use disorder.

Tara Mosely has been in recovery for almost six years. A student at the University of Louisville, she is also director of the Kentucky chapter of Young People in Recovery. This organization assists persons in recovery with a variety of tasks, ranging from applying to colleges to finding housing and helping getting criminal records expunged.

“We don’t see stories of people celebrating nine years of recovery,” Mosely said. “Or people that for the first time are going to college…or they are buying their first home, or they are getting married, or getting ready to start a family. I mean, those are success stories.”

“There is no one road to recovery,” said Van Ingram, executive director of Kentucky’s Office of Drug Control Policy. “We need all the tools at our disposal that we can have. And we need to tailor people’s treatment to the individual, what is most likely to work for them. And if that doesn’t work, we try another modality and see if that works. I think that is our only hope – to have everything we think of available to us, and to use all of it.”

Journey to Recovery is accompanied by a February 2017 town hall hosted by KET’s Renee Shaw, the Inside Opioid Addiction Forum. The forum brought together government agency directors, legislators, health care officials, treatment service administrators, and advocates for recovery to discuss the opioid epidemic in Kentucky and arrive at solutions. https://ket.org/episode/KIOPI+000000

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV)

More than 47,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2014. Arkansas contributes to this statistic, having the 25th highest death rate in the country.

Although Arkansas isn’t high on the country’s watch list for heroin, as prescription drug abuse gets worse, leaders fear heroin abuse could grow.

Albert Speed had a bright future ahead of him.

“He had the second highest PSAT scores at Central High. He wanted to go to Columbia University and major in engineering,” said Gary Speed, who had a son who loved every thing that makes Arkansas “natural,” that’s until an addiction took over.

“He lost his zest for life,” said Speed, “There’s nothing worse in a parent’s life than to find out that their child is dead.”

Albert Speed died at 18-year-old in 2006 to a prescription drug overdose.

“The combination of the Methadone and Xanax essentially shut down his respiratory system, and he suffocated,” said Speed.

Fifteen months before his death, Speed found marijuana in Albert’s car and confiscated it.

“He got really mad at me and decided he was leaving and he left my house, and I realized then I had a real problem,” said Speed.

His son’s anger and lack of enthusiasm were warning signs he was abusing more than just pot.

“Be honest with yourself. Don’t be in denial,” said Speed.

An addiction like Albert’s all too familiar in Arkansas, with 400 overdose deaths a year happening here.

“It tells you we’re having more than 1 a day on average,” said John Kirtley, director of Arkansas’ Pharmaceutical Board.

Kirtley says pill abuse is obvious when they see how many medicines are turned in as part of their Drug Take Back Program.

By Matt Burks

Albert Theodore Speed Enters the World

It was 2 p.m., Nov. 9, 1988. That was the day, the time, that Gary Speed, an up and coming Arkansas lawyer was preparing to see his own flesh and blood be born at Baptist Medical Center. Gary Speed is still an attorney today, but when you talk to him about his son Albert, you walk away with the impression that he would trade it all in just to spend more time with his baby boy.

“Everyone has dreams about what they want to do with their children and I was no different in those regards,” Gary Speed said.

He laughs about how sometime after 2 p.m. on Nov. 9, 1988, his then wife Julie who was not completely through all the dilation stages, was told by a nurse to walk into the bathroom to help speed up the process of child birth. He jokes about how his wife nearly had their child in the bathroom because suddenly little Albert was kicking to get out into the world.

Gary Speed remembers it well, it was 2:52 p.m. when he looked deep into the blue eyes of Albert for the first time. Holding his blonde hair, eight pound-two ounce, 21 and one-fourth inch son in his arms, Gary Speed was ready to protect Albert from the cold parts of the world.

“Albert was just an exceptional kid,” he said. “Any parent would feel so blessed to have him. He was happy, cute, fun loving. He loved to laugh and tell jokes. He had an incredible sense of humor and he was always a hoot, a funny kid who was always cracking jokes.”

Albert and the Teenage Years

By the time Albert Speed was 15 years old he was heavily involved in scouting, both the cub and boy scouts. His father was always there, whether as a den leader, scout master, or just being a parent.  

“Together we did just about everything you can imagine in scouting,” Gary Speed said. “He loved to rock climb, white water rafting, kayaking, he loved to go caving, sailing — we did all those things together. He made it to the rank of life scout. But I never pushed him to become an Eagle Scout (the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America).”

Despite not pushing his son, Gary Speed said Albert had great ambitions in scouting. Gary and Albert Speed didn’t just partake in the local scout meetings, the two spent several vacations together at the Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico. They hiked 80 miles through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which is part of the Rocky Mountains of northern New Mexico, to reach the peak of the mountain top.

On Gary Speed’s office desk sets a reminder of that time. He proudly displays a picture of Albert standing on a cliff, walking stick in hand reaching towards the sky with a sense of wonderment and happiness stuck on his face. Gary Speed said his son was “long and lean” reaching the height of six-foot, four-inches. Even with the serene mountains and clouds in the great distance showing signs of a storm rolling in behind Albert in the picture, the focus remains on a happy teen.

Gary Speed stares at his son wearing hiking boots, khaki shorts, black short sleeve shirt, raincoat tied around his waist and a white shell necklace. He didn’t know at the time the significance that snapshot of time would effect his life.

“After that last trip to Philmont, at the age of 14, Albert dreamed of being a ranger there and he had plans,” Gary Speed said. “His maturity amazed me.”

Even at Central High School in Little Rock, Gary Speed said his son was accomplishing great things. He said his son had a “beautiful, gorgeous” girlfriend, a lot of friends, and was making good grades.

“(Albert) was very popular and he had the second highest PSAT scores in his class,” Gary Speed said. “He was being looked at for a National Merit finalist. But like a lot of kids his age, Albert really went through adolescent change. He started wanting to do more things on his own.”

At the age of 16, Gary Speed believed his son began experimenting with drugs and that thought proved to be true when he found a some marijuana in Albert’s vehicle.

“But I suspected (Albert) was on other things too because of major personality changes,” he said. “On the night I found the marijuana in his car, I removed it, dispose of it and told his mother about it. Then she told him.”

He added, “When (Albert) found out, he became angry and aggressive. His personality changed.”

Gary Speed said his son use to be known to “challenge you intellectually” but never in an aggressive, physical manner. In a flash, Albert’s caring father said everything changed. The two fought that night and Gary said his normally happy, laughing, jokester son became very physically angry.

“I left at 2 a.m. and walked around Walmart to let (Albert) cool off,” Gary Speed recalls. “When I got back home, I found that he took a 30 pound dumbbell and used it to destroy a safe, and It scared the heck out of me. I realized at that point that I needed help from other adults, because I no longer had influence over my own son.”

A Father Attempts to Help His Distraught Son

Gary Speed said he spoke to the Central High School principal who recommended putting Albert in a drug treatment facility. Albert and his mother, where Albert lived, however, disagreed.

“After that 2 a.m. episode, (Albert) never returned to my house,” Gary Speed said while hiding pain behind his eyes. “He sent me an email and said he would end visitations because he couldn’t live up to my expectations.”

He added, “I never preached to him about drug abuse, but after years of being a scout, he knew where I stood. I also found out that his beautiful girlfriend had broke with (Albert) at least three times because of his drug use. That told me that (Albert) was really addicted. He chose drugs over her.

And also over the previously strong, close relationship with his father.

Fifteen months later, despite attempts to reach his son and convince him he needed to find away to get off drugs, Albert invited a few seniors into his mother’s home. The seniors had their last day of school, but every other student including Albert in his junior year, was to return the next day.

Gary Speed said when Albert’s mother kicked out his friends so that her son could get sleep for school the next day, Albert became angry. Albert grabbed a few things and headed to a friends home to crash for the night.

“(Albert) called his girlfriend, probably around 2 a.m., and said he wasn’t doing well,” Gary Speed said.

The next afternoon — May 26, 2006 — Albert’s friend threw a pillow at him. Albert did not respond. Gary Speed said he learned that after trying to wake Albert, the friend put Albert in the car to rush him to a hospital only to realize that Albert had died.

“It is amazing, but five years later and that day is still fresh in my mind,” Gary Speed said. “The image that comes to my mind, I want to take a rewind button and wish it never happened.”

The autopsy report said Albert Theodore Speed, a young tall seventeen year old boy with a passion for scouting and joking with family and friends, had alcohol and marijuana in his system; but according to the state medical examiner, Albert died from the combination of prescription drugs — methadone and xanax — that was also in his blood stream. The same drugs that routinely show up in Saline Courier articles, whether in a police beat or another tragic loss of a young person. Albert Speed had a lot of potential in life his father said, but “he gave up on his dreams” for a masked life of temporary pleasure in the form of pill.

Life After Loss and Finding Meaning In Tragedy   

Gary Speed looks again at the picture of his son reaching towards the clouds and this Courier reporter hears the voice of Stevie Nicks singing “I’m not a child anymore. I’m tall enough to reach for the stars. I’m old enough to love you from afar” on the Fleetwood Mac song Beautiful Child. Two fathers in an empty room, both missing their children, but sadly only one can return to see laughing smiles and warm hugs.

Gary Speed acknowledges that he would do anything to hold his son once more, but now he pushes on in life to help others. He searched and found meaning to commemorate his son’s life, and death.

“In grieving for a child, you want to find meaning and purpose in the death,” Gary Speed said. “To me it has been speaking to other youth about the dangers of prescription drug abuse.”

He shows facts and figures about prescription drug abuse among the youth right here in Arkansas. Gary Speed quickly prints off copies of fliers for Operation Medicine Cabinet III and a spreadsheet breaking down each prescription medication that caused a death since 2002 in Arkansas. He also prints off information written by the state Drug Director Fran Flener and countless other articles from local, state, and national experts about the dangers of prescription drug abuse.

But Gary Speed is also grounded enough to spread his message not through those facts and figures that ultimately may or may not get heard by readers, but through the emotional story of his son. The story of his son and the bond that was broken by experimentation with pills is strong enough to send a message, to change the thoughts of others.

Gary Speed said that two weeks after the loss of his son, he was scheduled to take another 80 mile trek at Philmont.

“At first I thought ‘I can’t go,’ but his mother insisted about (Albert) being cremated, then it donned on me,” he said. “I needed to go to Philmont.”

With a group of new young teenagers — aspiring Boy Scouts, and an urn of Albert’s ashes, Gary Speed hiked the 80 miles to the top of the mountain again where his son once reached for stars. He stood in that same spot his son did just two years prior that now graces Gary Speed’s office in a photo frame.

“We had 18 youth and six adults there and we had a memorial service for Albert,” Gary Speed said. “I told the kids about how Albert stood on top of this mountain and wanted to come back a ranger. But just like everyone, he made bad choices and he took a path of prescription drugs and died. (Albert) gave up his dreams.”

He added, “I encouraged them to not give up on their dreams, and to not be afraid to turn around if they get on the wrong path.”

Today, Gary Speed still practices law and is a prominent figure in the Stephen’s Building on Center Street in downtown Little Rock. From 1984 to 1996, he was a senior member of Rose Law Firm in Little Rock and today he practices law at Speed Law Firm.

Career wise, Gary Speed has made a lot of accomplishments. He said he also hopes to accomplish a lot of great things in life by reaching adults and children about the dangers of abusing prescription drugs, or other type of drugs, can present. It can change a life full of promise to a dark path of deception and even death, he said.

It is why Gary Speed is a proponent of helping events like OMC. Anything he can do to help others from going through the tragedies he met in life, he will do.

Gary Speed, with the help of Carolyn Long and Lance Herring with Jones Television in Springdale, Arkansas have produced a video that is available on www.youtube.com called “We Have A Problem Arkansas!” He encourages everyone to stop on the website and spend 13 minutes viewing the griping documentary.

There are also 2,500 copies made of the video that Gary Speed hopes to pass out at various OMC locations. He said there is still an urgent need to get his message out, including that recently another young man in his Boy Scout Troop 30 in Little Rock lost his life to a prescription drug and heroin overdose.

In response, the other boys in the troop plan to knock on literally thousands of homes in the Heights area of Little Rock and hand out the “We Have A Problem in Arkansas” video.

“We are working to try and educate the kids,” Gary Speed said. “Two deaths in the same (Boy Scout) troop is really devastating. You know, the Central High School principal told me five years ago that the drug problem in schools is not with the poor kids, it is the upper middle class and higher. These aren’t unintelligent kids abusing prescription drugs, they are very smart kids doing this. My son even tutored Calculus.”

He added, “Saline County is very fortunate to have the leadership of Chief Lane and the Saline Courier promoting Operation Medicine Cabinet. I hope we can replicate the success they’ve had with the program in the past in other areas of the state. Benton is really leading the way; and my personal goal is to beat Chief Lane and have Pulaski County get more prescription medicines dropped off than he does there.”

By Jon Kamp at The Wall Street Journal 

The U.S. opioid crisis shows no sign of receding as a new year begins, with the latest data from several hard-hit cities and states showing overdose fatalities reaching new peaks as authorities scramble to stem the tide. The synthetic opioid fentanyl, which has up to 50 times the potency of heroin, remains the chief culprit driving the increase in fatalities, according to medical examiners and health and law-enforcement authorities in abuse hot spots, such as Ohio, Maryland and New England.

Federal data for 2015 deaths came out only last month, showing a nearly 16% climb to 33,091 opioid deaths in the year. Many jurisdictions are still compiling the grim tallies for 2016.

“We’re just really awash in drug deaths, and it got acutely worse,” said Thomas Gilson, the medical examiner in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which includes Cleveland and is the state’s most populous county.

So far, his office has recorded 517 deaths from heroin and fentanyl in 2016, more than double the number from the previous year. And he isn’t done counting.

Fentanyl is a potent painkiller often used by cancer patients, but a bootleg version commonly made in China has become the major problem behind overdose deaths, according to law-enforcement and health authorities. Chemical cousins known as analogs are also on the rise, authorities said, sometimes as overseas labs switch recipes to keep ahead of law enforcement.

The worsening opioid crisis remains a major policy challenge for lawmakers. At the federal level, new legislation passed last month includes $1 billion over two years to help states improve abuse prevention and treatment initiatives. States have been working to monitor opioid prescribing, expand access to medically assisted treatment and distribute more naloxone, an overdose reversal drug.

Availability of data on overdose deaths varies city by city, and state by state. The same states with signs of higher fatal-overdose rates last year are among the 19 that posted statistically significant increases in 2015, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ohio is likely months away from tallying statewide numbers, according to a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Health, but Dr. Gilson expects a sharp increase for the state as a whole.

Similarly, Pennsylvania is on track to have a significant statewide rise in 2016, said Patrick Trainor, a special agent in the Philadelphia office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which tallies overdose data for the state. Philadelphia alone may surpass 900 overdoses in 2016, up from 720 the prior year, he said.

In Maryland, the latest data show an estimated 1,468 overdose deaths through September 2016, which exceeds the entire tally from 2015. Authorities in Baltimore, a longtime heroin hot spot with a rising fentanyl problem, said overdose deaths surged 68% to 481 in the first nine-months last year, compared with the same period a year earlier.

New England states, which have among the highest fatal-overdose rates in the U.S., are broadly reporting higher death rates for 2016 as they continue to tally the data. Fentanyl, once seen largely by authorities as an additive that traffickers mixed into the heroin supply, has become a stand-alone killer in some areas.

Numbers released Wednesday by New Hampshire’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner counted 159 deaths last year with just fentanyl, compared with two heroin-only deaths and 19 deaths with both drugs. The office projects overdose deaths will climb 7% in 2016 from 2015, adding to the 35% year-over-year rise for the prior year.

Massachusetts also is seeing fentanyl in most overdose deaths now. New England’s most populous state has tallied 2016 data through September, and the state is on pace for more drug deaths this year, said Monica Bharel, commissioner of the state’s Department of Public Health.

Connecticut and Rhode Island are seeing more fatal overdoses in 2016, compared with the prior year, according to data collected thus far. Maine has reported 286 drug-overdose deaths through September 2016, 14 deaths more than in all of 2015.

Meanwhile, fentanyl-related overdoses in North Carolina rose at least 42% in 2016, compared with 2015, according to the state health department. The state hasn’t completed its 2016 tally.

Write to Jon Kamp at [email protected]

Two bills in the Arkansas Senate are being considered to prevent overprescription of prescription narcotics, which is also an effort to reduce prescription drug abuse and deaths due to prescription drug abuse. If Senate Bill 302, sponsored by Sen. Missy Irvin (R-Mountain View), is approved it will require professional licensing boards to promulgate rules requiring practitioners to access the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program.

The Prescription Drug Monitoring Program was established in 2011 which states, “Arkansas law requires that each dispenser shall submit, by electronic means, information regarding each prescription dispensed for a controlled substance. Each time a controlled substance is dispensed to an individual, the dispenser shall submit the information required by Arkansas law to the central repository weekly for the previous week, Sunday through Saturday.”

Chicago Tribune

By: Carrie Napoleon

A 37-year-old Crown Point woman became the 21st person in Lake County to die from an overdose Friday, a needle and syringe still stuck in her arm, according to the Lake County Coroner’s office.

With 21 fatalities in the year’s first 41 days, Lake County Coroner Merrilee Frey said a heroin epidemic is claiming an unprecedented number of lives. The total confirmed overdose deaths for January and the entire month of February last year was 18, she said.

“Know that we have many people, hundreds and hundreds in our communities who have an addiction,” Frey said.

The woman’s death paints a vivid picture of the problem that is expected to get worse before it gets better, she said. Heroin and opioid overdose deaths have been on the rise in recent years. There were 114 people who died from drug overdoses in Lake County in 2016. Frey fears the area is at the cusp of a spike in deaths.

“I’m hoping with all my heart after seeing such as high a number of deaths it will make (addicts) realize their own mortality,” Frey said.

Porter County Coroner Chuck Harris said heroin is a problem in his county as well, though the numbers are not as striking as those seen in Lake County.

In 2017, there have been two suspected heroin overdose deaths in Porter County, though toxicology reports are pending, he said. At this point in 2016 there were six opioid deaths — three from heroin, one from methadone, one from tramadol and one from morphine. His office will begin testing for fentanyl this year.

Harris said in 2016 there were 48 total drug-related deaths in Porter County. Of those, 20 had heroin in their systems and 36 had some form of opioid, which in some cases in combination with the heroin, he said.

Tackling the problem will take a multi-faceted approach, Harris said.

“There’s no one single answer,” Harris said. “We need treatment centers. We need to get rid of the stigma. People don’t want to seek help because they get labeled a drug user. It’s a disease, nothing different than any other type of disease.”

Harris said studies routinely show the need for long-term treatment centers.

“Instead of keep looking at it, we need to actually do it,” Harris said.

Lake County Sheriff John Buncich said the trend is alarming and it is getting worse. He said the use of fentanyl in heroin is particularly troubling. Users do not know what they are buying and what is mixed into their drugs and the extra potency is proving deadly.

“It is just going to take the community as a whole to come together and fight this,” Buncich said.

Not a day goes by without an addict being incarcerated at the Lake County Jail, he said. Buncich said 42 people were being treated at the jail for serious addictions Monday. He said the expense of treatment, and of supplying the sheriff’s department officers with naloxone, the heroin overdose antidote, continues to grow.

“We are facing a serious, serious situation here in Lake County. It is really hitting home here,” Buncich said.

The sheriff said police are doing what they can on the enforcement end regarding the problem but the solution is not behind a badge alone.

“We have to get a message out. We need to start young. We need to start within the schools right away,” Buncich said, adding the conversation in schools used to be about marijuana. Now, he said, it needs to be about the dangers of heroin.

“It’s a wake-up call,” Buncich said.

Frey said part of the spike in deaths being seen now has been attributed to an increased use of heroin laced with the narcotic painkiller fentanyl, the most powerful painkiller for medical use. As early as March 2015, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration issued a nationwide alert warning of the dangers of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues.

According to the DEA on its website, fentanyl is 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine.

Many of the overdose victims have a cocktail of other drugs and alcohol in their system including heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, marijuana, benzodiazepine and alcohol, Frey said. In 2016, 93 of the 114 overdose deaths were attributed to controlled substance. A controlled substance can be any type of narcotic including prescription drugs not used as they are prescribed. Heroin was found in the blood streams of 55 of the 114 overdose victims in 2016. Fentanyl was discovered in 27 of the victims and benzodiazepine was discovered in 75 of the victims.

“It sends a startling message of how dangerous heroin is and how dangerous it is mixed with other substances. The combinations are proving to be deadly,” Frey said.

Addicts, such as the woman who died Friday, may be falling victim to the laced heroin because of its unexpected potency, Frey said. The dose that killed the woman was so strong she died while still in the process of injecting herself, Frey said. She said the situation is tragic.

“Guess who is finding those victims? It’s the ones who love them the most – their moms and dads,” Frey said.

2016 Lake County drug deaths

Statistics from the Lake County Coroner’s office show the deaths cross the socio-economic spectrum and touch every Lake County community. Gary saw the highest number of overdoses in 2016 with 26 followed by Hammond with 18.

Crown Point had the third highest number of overdose deaths with nine, followed by Highland with eight. Griffith and Munster tied for fifth with seven overdose deaths each and in East Chicago there were six. There were four overdose deaths each in the cities of Hobart and Lake Station, and three overdose deaths each in Schererville and Dyer. Whiting, Merrillville and Lake Village each had two deaths. Cedar Lake, Hebron and Lowell each had one. There were 10 individuals who overdosed outside of Lake County but died in a Lake County hospital and count toward the 114 total.

In 2016, the statistics from Lake County show 75 overdose victims were men while 39 were women. Eighty of the 2016 overdose victims were white, 26 where black, seven were Hispanic and one individual was Asian.

The deaths cross all age groups. Sixteen people ranging in age from 15 to 24 died from overdoses in 2016 while another 26 died in the 25 to 34 age group; 22 in the 45 to 54 age group and 12 in the 55 to 64 age group.

The largest number of deaths appeared in the 35- to 44-year-old range where 36 people died from overdoses. Another two deaths were recorded in the 65- to 75-year-old age group. Coroner Merrilee Frey said the oldest person to die from an overdose in 2016 was 69.

WSCOTV.com – Charlotte, NC

By: Blake Hanson

As law enforcement agencies make landmark heroin arrests in the greater Charlotte area, officials are converging on the city to talk about the issue.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department are among the groups hosting a one-day conference Tuesday on the heroin and opiate crisis.

The Charlotte area saw an 80-year increase in heroin overdose deaths in 2016 over the previous year, according to the DEA.

Agencies have made major busts in recent weeks.

Gaston County law enforcement rounded up 18 people Monday morning suspected of trafficking and selling heroin.

In early February, the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office announced that it had made its largest-ever heroin bust. That case has ties to the Mexican drug cartel.

Federal prosecutors also recently reached a plea agreement with Maggie Sanders, a suspected trafficker, with alleged ties to a Mexican drug trafficking organization.

Jill Westmoreland Rose, U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, sat down with Channel 9 on Monday to talk about the rise in heroin and opiate abuse.

“Because marijuana is legal in so many places in the United States, (Mexican drug organizations) have found it’s not as lucrative to grow marijuana and smuggle it to the United States,” Rose said. “Those cannabis farmers have now turned to farming poppies.”

Rose said the organizations use their existing structures to distribute heroin.

“They are just smuggling in a different product,” Rose said.

Rose told Channel 9 that it’s important that her office target sources of supply from Mexico. But she said it must also tackle the problem through means other than prosecution.

“We can’t prosecute our way of this problem, so we have to look to the community, we have to look to other areas to help us combat this,” Rose said.

The conference will start at 9 a.m. Tuesday at Calvary Church in south Charlotte.

“Speak Up-Speak Out” Workshop at ASU

On February, 9, 2017, Arkansas State University in Jonesboro hosted the William Christian Doerhoff Memorial Foundation’s inaugural Speak Up-Speak Out workshop and the focus was on the life-threatening dangers of illicit prescription drug use and illegal substance abuse on high school and college campuses.

Amber Long of Arkansas State University Counseling Center told the crowd that, “As much as we don’t want to believe [drug problems] are here, it is.”

“You came to this university to make a difference,” said Matthew Barden, Assistant Special Agent and Charge of the DEA in Arkansas. “Tonight, we will present the compelling story of the prescription opioid crisis in our country and on campuses all across the nation. We hope to teach and empower students to escape the bystander effect, and save a life by speaking up and speaking out. We profile William ‘Will’ Christian Doerhoff, who grew up in Maumelle, Arkansas and went to Little Rock Catholic High School, one of the most stringent high schools in America.”

He added, “I challenge you not to do drugs and if you see someone who is – Speak Up-Speak Out.”

Featured speakers Barden and Long were supported by Executive Director of the Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy John Kirtley and Benton Police Department Chief Kirk Lane.

Will’s Story

Will had a 3.7 GPA and scored 27 on his ACT. He was a member of the Maumelle Youth Council and President of the Community Service Club at Catholic High where he spent his weekends working and volunteering to help people. As far as his parents knew, their son Will never abused drugs of any kind in high school.

Will began his college career in the fall semester of 2014 at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, as an 18-year-old freshman. Will said that during his fraternity pledging semester there was drinking and many of the boys, including Will, took illicit prescription drugs as a stimulant. Will confessed that one of his older fraternity brothers taught him to inject and smoke illicit prescription narcotics. Had Will’s parents known of this early, he would have been home and in treatment as quickly as this began.

In early July 2015, Will’s mother found him face-down, barely alive in his bedroom. His prescription drug use had escalated and he had overdosed on Heroin. Will was successful in recovery for a year. But one day in October 2016, he relapsed. At 20 years old, heroin took his life.

What began as permissive illicit prescription narcotics use on a college campus, led to the death of one of the most beautiful children God put on this earth, said Will’s parents. After Will’s death, his mother and father found his cell phone which was open to a chat and his fraternity brothers discussing what happened. In their words, “10 to 20” of them knew that their pledge brother had gotten caught up in hard drug use with an older student but none of them knew it was OK to say something or tell someone.

Students engage in the “Bystander Effect.” The William Christian Doerhoff Memorial Foundation’s goal is to empower peers to “Speak Up-Speak Out” when they know their friends are participating in illicit prescription drug use and illegal substance abuse. “You have the potential to save a life,” said Barden.