Deadly fentanyl overdoses mount
Area advocates say legalizing test strips could reduce deaths
As the top elected leader in Stowe, Robin Parrilla has watched the fentanyl scourge tear at his community during the pandemic.
The small township in Allegheny County was hit with the area’s highest rate of fatal overdoses last year from the powerful synthetic opioid in an epidemic that has penetrated nearly every corner of the nation.
Then on an April morning this year, Mr. Parrilla came closer to fentanyl than he ever wanted.
His son, Robb, who had been in recovery for eight years, didn’t come down for breakfast. Mr. Parrilla and his other son then went to check, knocking on Robb’s door. There was no answer.
Inside, they found him motionless on the floor — his skin turned blue — in what has become a
painful memory for the 68year-old president of the township commission.
“Seeing your son die, it’s not something anyone should have to see,” he said.
The overdose death of the 32-year-old man marked yet another casualty in a community that’s been deeply impacted by the fentanyl wave, prompting Mr. Parrilla to take up the fight as a personal mission.
“I am declaring war on fentanyl,” he said. “I’ve been to a lot of funerals of young people, and local, county or state level, somebody needs to be held accountable.”
Some experts attributed much of the rise in overdose deaths in 2020 to the pandemic — and the lack of support for some people with addictions to get help. But so far this year, people are continuing to die in alarming numbers in an epidemic that has taken a brutal toll on the Pittsburgh region, records and interviews show.
The Post-Gazette published a story in June that showed overdoses surged across Allegheny County in 2020, with 84% of deaths involving fentanyl — the highest percentage ever recorded.
This year, the Post-Gazette has found the rate is even higher — about 90% — with at least 183 people who have died in cases involving fentanyl, an early number that’s likely to climb.
“It’s still happening every day,” Mr. Parrilla said.
Spiraling deaths
At least a dozen times this year, medical rescue workers in the county responded to four or more deadly overdoses in a single day, the vast majority involving fentanyl.
In the small working-class city of Clairton, at least six people have died this year in overdoses involving the drug — two on the same street, records show.
The rise in deaths has prompted public officials to call for efforts from law enforcement and other government agencies to battle the crisis, including the legalization in Pennsylvania of the distribution of fentanyl strips — a tool that can alert people to the presence of the drug.
Because fentanyl often is used to “cut” other drugs like heroin and cocaine — a method that can boost potency and profits for the dealers — the strips can give users the ability to test the drugs for fentanyl, and ultimately save lives, experts say.
The most visible elected official in the state to push for the strips to become legal shares a painfully similar story to Mr. Parrilla’s.
State Rep. Jim Struzzi, whose younger brother Michael died of a drug overdose due to a combination of substances, has been sponsoring legislation since last year that would allow the strips to be distributed throughout the state.
Originally designed as a urine drug test, the tiny strips can detect fentanyl in small diluted amounts of drugs, potentially giving users more control over what they consume. Legal in some states like Colorado, Maryland and Rhode Island, the strips are made in Canada and the U.S. and cost about $1 each.
Mr. Struzzi, a Republican and former press secretary for the state Department of Transportation, said he’s championing the bill because he wants to save families from the heartache of having to bury a loved one lost to fentanyl.
His mission began after his family faced the shattering news in November 2014.
“It was a day I’ll never forget. It was a drizzly gray day, and my wife called me and basically said that your brother is dead,” he said. “It was just shocking.”
He then rushed back to his family from his job and arrived before the coroner. “Those are images that are ingrained in my mind forever,” he said.
While his brother’s death was not attributed to fentanyl, Mr. Struzzi said he’s been watching the latest
rise in death cases, largely driven by illicit fentanyl and its chemical derivatives — a drug at least 50 times more powerful than morphine.
State health officials say fentanyl has become the “dominant theme” in overdose deaths in Pennsylvania. Last week, the state released early numbers that show three-quarters of the 5,063 statewide overdose deaths last year involved fentanyl or its analogs.
Making it even more dangerous: Users often do not know that fentanyl has been mixed into the drugs they’re taking.
In those deaths involving fentanyl, 28% showed the presence of heroin, and nearly half showed cocaine, according to Allegheny County data analyzed by the Post-Gazette.
Pushing for the strips
House Bill 1393 would pave the way for fentanyl test strips to no longer be considered illegal under Pennsylvania’s wide ranging 1972 drug paraphernalia law. But so far, it has not managed to pick up support throughout the entire Legislature, prompting Mr. Struzzi to keep pushing.
“We need to give [people] all the help they need,” said Mr. Struzzi, whose bill has been sitting in the judiciary committee since May. “At least they can know if what they’re taking might kill them.”
As deaths from the powerful synthetic opioid surge in cities across the nation, the federal government announced in April that groups that receive grants to battle the opioid epidemic can use that money to buy the strips.
But even as overdoses skyrocket across Allegheny County, county health officials say none of the nearly $6 million in annual federal grants received to help users and people in recovery will be set aside for the strips.
“We are looking to the state to determine the laws. If they allow for the strips to be used, that’s a tool we would certainly welcome,” said Otis Pitts, the Health Department’s deputy director for the Bureau of Food, Housing and Policy.
In 2019, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. told prosecutors at the magistrate level throughout the county and in the city of Pittsburgh to drop any cases that involve simple possession of the strips.
Prevention Point Pittsburgh, a needle exchange nonprofit that has been running for more than two decades, has been giving out the strips since 2016.
Advocates compare the detection tools to giving out clean syringes, which were once handed out under the table by Prevention Point before it gained permission from Allegheny County to do so in the early 2000s.
Although the county Health Department has not made an exception for the strips, Prevention Point said it will continue to pass them out under the assumption that the program will not be prosecuted for doing so.
“It’s an outdated, archaic law that does nothing to forward public health. Enforcement of it is totally discretionary,” said Alice Bell, the group’s overdose prevention coordinator. “It makes sense to repeal the archaic laws to clarify that drug-checking equipment is not criminalized, so that people who use them to try to protect themselves and others from overdose death are not criminalized for doing so.”
Still, advocates say fentanyl test strips are not a panacea.
They advise people to follow a set of precautions each time they use drugs: “Use with other people. Do a test dose — You can always do more, not less. Go slow. Take turns using because you can’t give yourself naloxone,” said Dr. Kimberly Sue, medical director for the National Harm Reduction Coalition.
“But I believe that so many of my patients are really surprised to find that there’s fentanyl in their supply. Many people in the ER think they’re taking [oxycontin] or [other drugs] and find there’s fentanyl in them,” she said. “We need all the empowerment and engagement we can get.”
That’s what Jeffrey Chieffo thinks as well. His mother, Jennifer, died at age 50 at the end of May from a combination of cocaine and fentanyl, according to the medical examiner.
“[My family] had a baby the same week, so I thought it was kind of weird that she would risk her life in that way,” Mr. Chieffo said of his mother, who he estimates used drugs for more than two decades. “I think she got a bad batch from somebody she thought she could trust.”
Ms. Chieffo’s roommate
West Mifflin found her near her rocking chair, alone.
Mr. Chieffo, 28, of Verona, said he doesn’t think his mom had access to fentanyl test strips, and isn’t sure if she even knew about them. He’s only recently learned about them online.
“Why not let [people] just be safe? You’re not going to stop someone who wants to do something. You can sell them right at the gas station. They’d probably be a top seller,” he said.
“That’s one thing I learned growing up. There’s more people who use drugs than you think. I’ve never had a problem myself, but I’ve known a lot of people who have.”
‘This is wrong’
Mr. Parrilla’s son, Robb, had been in rehab for drug use and was still trying to get back on his feet. Up until April of this year, he had been working in landscaping and other odd jobs while living at home with the township trustee and his wife.
He said his son was quiet and often kept to himself but was smart and loved music and playing guitar. The Stowe board president said his son had undergone a few tough years. But it appeared that he was on his way back to living a normal life.
“I don’t believe my son was ready to die, and I think it was an accident, and I know because before this COVID he was going to a therapist who was doing a pretty good job with him,” he said.
Yet on the morning of April 22, Mr. Parrilla learned firsthand what had been unfolding in the township for more than a year.
Last year, Stowe had at least 15 deaths among a population of just 6,100. So far this year, at least four more people died from overdoses, records show. The commissioner says he will advocate for the legalization of fentanyl test strips and continue to work with law enforcement to stop the spread of the illicit substance in the community.
“I’m on a mission now. ... This is wrong,” Mr. Parrilla said.