N.M. receives top marks fighting opioid overdoses

2015-16 rate of 17.5 deaths per 100,000 people still worse than national average

New Mexico is one of two states to score top marks in tackling opioid-related overdoses through policymaking, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Safety Council.

The Illinois-based nonprofit organization graded states on six measures it said are best practices to fight the epidemic of opioid overdoses, which claimed more than 42,000 lives in the United States in 2016.

The measures included: mandating prescriber education, implementing guidelines for prescribers, implementing prescription-drug monitoring programs, improving data collection and sharing, treating opioid overdose, and increasing the availability of treatments for opioid use disorder. Only New Mexico and Nevada met all the criteria. Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon and Wyoming received a failing grade, meeting only one or two criteria.

Fatal overdoses resulting from the use of heroin and

prescription opioids such as oxycodone, fentanyl and hydrocodone, have been on the rise in the United States over the past several decades, with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2017 declaring the trend a public health emergency.

“It’s the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, drug overdoses,” said Jane Terry, senior director of governmental affairs for the National Safety Council. “There’s more that we can do. It’s probably nationally going to get worse before it gets better.”

The report, Prescription Nation 2018 comes as New Mexico’s opioid-related death rate has steadied after years of steep ascent. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the state was one of only three included in an analysis to see a decline, albeit a small one, in its death rate between 2015 and 2016, the last year for which data was available.

Over that stretch, New Mexico’s rate decreased from 17.9 to 17.5 deaths per 100,000 residents. That rate still exceeds the national average, which increased from 10.4 to 13.3 deaths per 100,000 residents over the same period.

Of the 32 states with available data, only Oregon and Nevada also showed decreases.

As recently as 2014 in New Mexico, there was nowhere to go but up. That year, only West Virginia logged more fatal drug overdoses per capita than New Mexico.

Since then, as the opioid epidemic has intensified in the northeastern United States, and as New Mexico’s death rate has decreased, the state has climbed out of the bottom 10. In 2016, New Mexico ranked 39th, with 500 fatal overdoses for a rate of 25.2 per 100,000 residents. The national average rate was 19.8. State public health experts attribute New Mexico’s stabilizing rate to some of the very programs the council’s report encourages. One law, adopted in 2012, requires doctors to check patients’ prescription histories before prescribing opioid painkillers. That simple check can prevent patients from so-called doctor shopping. New Mexico was among the first states to permit law enforcement agents to administer Naloxone, a drug that can save an overdosing patient if administered early enough. Lynn Gallagher, secretary of the New Mexico Department of Health, said in an email that department officials are “working hard to reduce drug overdose deaths in New Mexico, including from prescription opioids.”

Gov. Susana Martinez said she has made the effort a priority.

“It is clear that we still have work to do, and we are committed to reducing the loss of life to opioid overdose and ending the tragic impact that these drugs have on our families and communities.”