County gets $2M to fight opioid epidemic
Demascus Wright struggled to pull himself back into consciousness the last time he got high.
“I had taken some fentanyl and I had never felt like that,” said Wright, now 66. “I just couldn’t come out of it. It was scary. I knew that this could not continue, or I might as well get in a casket.”
Shortly after that incident two years ago, the Houston man was arrested for failing a probation drug screening. While incarcerated, Wright had access to care through the Harris County Jail’s Medication Assisted Treatment pilot, which provides addiction treatment medications and counseling. He said it saved his life.
That program and others like it will be expanded with funds from a $2 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control awarded to Harris County Public Health this week.
The grant, announced at a news conference Tuesday, will also launch a new collaboration among county agencies, addiction treatment centers and universities that train physicians to battle the opioid epidemic.
“These funds will allow us to build an infrastructure to prevent the opioid crisis we’ve seen in other communities across the country,” said Dr. Umair Shah, executive director of Harris County Public Health. “While it does not appear opioid overdose levels in Harris County have reached those seen elsewhere, we certainly want to do everything we can to keep it that way.”
Overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death in Harris County, and in 2018, nearly half of the overdose deaths in the county involved opioids, Shah said. According to the CDC, around 75 percent of all overdose deaths in the nation involved opioids.
More than 47,000 people died from opioid overdoses in 2017 in the United States, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. In Texas, 1,458 people
died of overdoses that year.
Deaths from overdoses nearly tripled since 2000 in Texas, according to CDC statistics released in 2018. There were 2,979 overdose deaths in the state in 2017, up from the 1,087 recorded the previous year.
The Houston region also saw an uptick in opioid overdose deaths during that period, according to data from the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. There were 149 deaths documented by the office in 2017, up from the 79 recorded in 2015.
The new collaboration will focus on improved data collection, enhanced overdose prevention efforts and getting those suffering from addiction into treatment.
Shah said the health department will hire more staff to collect and analyze data to identify trends in opioid abuse.
“Right now, that data is lacking,” he said.
With better data and analysis, officials will be better able to understand the full extent of the opioid epidemic’s impact locally and learn who is most at risk of addiction, the director said.
Baylor College of Medicine is among the partners in the collaboration. It will increase the number of doctors who can offer evidence-based treatment for opioid addictions with additional training for current and future physicians.
With the new funding, the university will also give posttraining support to current doctors to ensure they follow current CDC recommendations for treating chronic pain, said Dr. Alicia Kowalchuk, associate professor at Baylor.
“Opioid prescriptions are still the most misused in the U.S.,” Kowalchuk said. “And getting prescription opioids from physicians is still the most common source of the drug in the U.S.”
In the past, it was practice for many doctors to prescribe opioids to treat pain without trying other less potentially harmful approaches first, Kowalchuk said.
The county must be proactive
“We’ve seen growing signs it is here. We see it within the confines of the jail every day.” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez on opioid problem
in its approach to preventing a worsening opioid problem, said Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.
“We’ve seen growing signs it is here,” the sheriff said. “We see it within the confines of the jail every day.”
Right now, the sheriff ’s office’s addiction treatment staff is overwhelmed by the number of people who need their services, said Dariel Newman, the jail’s head nurse of quality improvement. The grant will fund the addition of one more licensed addiction treatment counselor to work in the jail, Newman said.
Gonzalez said his office is taking other steps to meet those in need where there are. The office’s Homeless Outreach Team this month distributed nasalspray naloxone, which blocks the impact of opioids and can stop overdoses, at homeless encampments in the county.
“We can be compassionate and make sure we’re being smart about how we utilize our resources,” Gonzalez said. “Those paths are much more effective than continuing to bring folks into the criminal justice system.”
Wright said the compassion he received after his arrest helped him survive his recovery.
“If I had not (been arrested), I would not be where I am today,” he said.
Wright was recently hired at a Houston law firm as an office assistant for a civil attorney. He said sobriety has allowed him to rebuild his relationships with his four children.
“I got my life back,” he said. “I got my kids back. I’m happy.”