MARION, Ohio (AP) — The usual handwringing
over the heroin problem turned into panic in this small city in
May when a supercharged blue-tinted batch from Chicago sent more
than 30 overdose victims to the hospital and two to the morgue
in a 12-day stretch.
Like many places in America, Marion — an hour's drive north of
the capital, Columbus — has gotten used to heroin. Emergency
crews in the city of 37,000 have become accustomed to treating
an overdose patient about once a day for the past year or so.
But they were stunned when the unprecedented onslaught began on
May 20.
They say if it hadn't been for naloxone, an antidote carried by
paramedics, most of the survivors probably would have died, too.
They ranged in age from their late teens to early 60s.
"We were going from one to another to another, sometimes going
back to the same house twice in one day for two different
people," said Police Chief Bill Collins, who called for help
from state and federal agencies. They hope to find the source of
so-called "blue drop" heroin laced with the powerful painkiller
fentanyl that is believed to have caused 56 overdoses and five
deaths here since mid-April.
Collins and others say the recent spike in overdoses and
drug-related crime underscores how outgunned they are by a
growing public-health scourge that has invaded nearly every
neighborhood and taxes emergency services already cut to the
bone. Not nearly enough addiction treatment is available.
"Most of the time I feel like I'm drowning," said Jody
Demo-Hodgins, head of the Crawford-Marion Board of Alcohol, Drug
Addiction and Mental Health Services, the clearinghouse agency
for trying to treat and prevent addiction. "It's something
that's happening everywhere."
For many in Marion, an industrial town that's been slow to
recover from hard economic times, the past two months brought
the crisis home.
Facebook pages are supporting those in recovery and organizing
such efforts as cleaning alleys and parks where addicts tend to
leave discarded needles. A tattoo artist created a special
design for recovering addicts and their supporters, vowing to
give half of the money to the fire department to buy more
naloxone. A recovering addict spends his days and nights driving
people to detox centers in other cities and helped raise money
for the funeral of a 19-year-old single mother who died from an
overdose on May 21.
"It's like it's not the same town you grew up in," says Justin
Cantrell, the 31-year-old tattooist who came up with the "Fight
the Fight, Stay Clean" design he has inked on a few people so
far. A Marion native, Cantrell went to school with a 31-year-old
man who was killed by an overdose on May 22. He knows 15 to 20
people who have become heroin addicts.
"It's just getting heavy on the heart," he said.
The increase in heroin use nationwide over the past few years
has its roots in the raging pain pill epidemic. When states
clamped down on "pill mill" clinics and prescription drugs
became harder to get, many addicts turned to heroin because it's
cheaper and easier to find. When the blue heroin came to town,
it was immediately in demand.
"It may sound sick and twisted, but if you tell a drug addict
there is dope so good that it's going to kill you, it doesn't
make them not want to try it. It makes them want to try it even
more," says Michael Pack, a 39-year-old recovering addict who
has helped dozens of users get into detox, sometimes driving
them to other cities where there is space in treatment programs.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in March
that heroin overdose deaths in the United States quadrupled from
2000 to 2013, with most of the increase coming after 2010. In
Ohio, heroin overdose deaths rose from 697 in 2012 to 983 in
2013, the last year for which statistics were available.
Many more likely would be dying if not for naloxone, better
known by its brand name Narcan, which was administered 15,493
times by emergency medical crews in Ohio last year, according to
the state health department. Ohio is among a handful of states
taking steps to make the lifesaving drug available to virtually
anyone willing to be trained to use it.
Officials in Marion hope they've seen the worst of the latest
heroin skirmish. On Wednesday, 60 law enforcement officers
raided three addresses in Marion, arrested four people and
seized more than two pounds of the blue heroin that has plagued
the city.
But they know there will be more, and that the heroin crisis
probably hasn't peaked yet, here or anywhere else.
Kelly Clixby is a 37-year-old recovering addict whose life was
saved by two shots of naloxone from a paramedic after she shot
up some fentanyl-laced heroin in January 2014. Now clean for
seven months, she helps run the Facebook page offering support
for recovering addicts and is trained to administer naloxone.
She worries that a certain amount of heroin addiction is now
viewed as the new normal in Marion.
"It's not getting better, it's just becoming acceptable," she
says. "Our town has just broke down. It's just in a bad state." |
