The sight is sobering; page after page, after page—107 in all—containing the names of people from our area who have died from drug overdoses over the past year and a half.
Two reports from the Summit County Medical Examiner’s Office, list the names and other vital statistics such as age, race, and address, of men and women ranging in age from 17 to 74, who perished from drugs including cocaine, and amphetamines, but mostly it appears, from fentanyl.
In 2022, there were 247 fatal drug overdoses in Summit County, which is a little over 20 per month. So far this year, there have been 85, which is a little over 14 per month.
On June 2, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner issued a Public Health Alert, after 5 people died from suspected drug overdoses in just 12 hours, and News5 reported this weekend, that fatal overdoses in Cuyahoga County this year are actually on track to outpace their highest year on record, which was 2017.
If you just look at the numbers, and don’t read the details of the Summit County reports; you might lose track of the fact that these were once people who may have been your friends, neighbors, people you saw at the grocery store, or that you worked with every day. While some of them were very young—late teens and early 20’s—the majority were middle aged, to older adults, in their 40’s to mid 70’s.
While there is no way to know their individual stories from just looking at the grim statistics laid out in black and white on a Medical Examiner's report, you know they all had one; a unique way of looking at the world, dealing with their happiness and grief, coming to terms with their problems, and then coming to the end of the line, either on purpose, or by accident.
All these people now populate our local cemeteries, and are part of the ongoing story of the toll the Opiod epidemic continues to take on America. So, it seemed fitting to write about them today, because we had word just a few days ago from the Ohio Attorney General’s office about yet another legal settlement with big companies that agreed to pay 22 states, including Ohio, $17.3 billion dollars for their part in actually causing the epidemic that at least to some degree, set the stage for these people to die.
Of course this is a global issue as well, with not only legal pharmaceutical drugs, like Oxycodone, made and distributed by US companies supplying the drugs that lead to overdose deaths.
Fentanyl, a synthetic Opiod drug which is so dangerous that even a tiny dose can be fatal, is coming into the United States in vast quantities now from other countries like Mexico and China, where criminal cartels are profiting from, and governments are turning a blind eye to, continuing exports aimed at satisfying what seems to be America’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for more and more of these types of drugs.
For example, the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) reports that in 2022, they seized more than 58.3 million fentanyl-laced fake pills and more than 13,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. The 2022 seizures, they estimate, are equivalent to more than 387 million lethal doses of fentanyl. In addition, so far in 2023, their fentanyl seizures represent over 167.8 million deadly doses.
Out of the $17.3 billion dollar settlement reached just a few days ago with two pharmaceutical companies; Teva and Allergan, along with two drugstore chains; CVS and Walgreens; Ohio will get $679.6 million dollars, which will be dedicated mostly to funding drug addiction treatment and prevention programs.
It is just one of a number of similar Court settlements, which have resulted in money coming back to communities like Akron, to help deal with the damaging effects of the epidemic fueled to a large degree, by illegal and unscrupulous activities on the part of big pharmaceutical compamies, drug distributors, pharmacies, and "pill mill" doctors.
Click here, to find out more about Ohio's part in this most recent court settlement, and here, for a link to the Summit County ADM Board’s website, where you can learn about addiction recovery services available in our area.