The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Coroner: Opioid deaths rising
Despite falling short of projections, overdose still on pace to exceed 2016 numbers
The Lorain County Coroner said the number of overdose deaths in the county is on pace to exceed last year but appears to be falling short of his initial projections.
Dr. Stephen Evans said he originally believed this year would double last year’s count of 120 overdose deaths, but it seems things are slowing down a bit.
“At one point I thought we were going to
double last year; we may not quite double it,” he said. “We had things slow down a little bit, but we’re definitely going to be over last year.”
Evans explained that nearly all overdose deaths are not the result of a single drug, but a mixture of one or two. He said this year the number one drug found in overdose deaths is fentanyl and its analogues.
“The big thing this year, the number one drug that’s fentanyl and its analogues, like the carfentanil and the 3-methylfentanyl,” he said.
According to Evans, the second drug found most often in overdose death victims is surprising given recent statistics.
“The number two drug is cocaine,” he said. “All of a sudden we’re seeing in the last year a huge uptick in the number of people dying that are taking cocaine.”
According to Evans, for the past few years the county was seeing about one cocaine death a year.
“Within the last year we’ve had 50 deaths that had cocaine involved,” he said.
In a previous interview with The Morning Journal, Evans had explained that cocaine was popular in the county in the 1980s, but had since fallen out of fashion.
Evans said he doesn’t know why people are starting to use cocaine again, but he believes it may have something to do with the volume of overdoses due to fentanyl.
“I’ve had a number of users tell me that their so afraid of the fentanyl/heroin that they’ve been trying cocaine,” he said. “It’s a completely different drug and it’s not going to help their withdrawal.”
This attempt to avoid the dangers of fentanyl is proving fruitless, though, because Evans said dealers may be beginning to cut cocaine with the deadly opiate. He also postulated that users may be mixing the substances themselves into a cocktail sometimes called “The Belushi,” after deceased comedian and Blues Brother John Belushi who died after taking a similar concoction.
Evans said the interesting thing about these statistics is that Cuyahoga County is also showing an increase in cocaine-involved overdose deaths, though not as pronounced as in Lorain County.
“I wonder why we’re getting more cocaine deaths than they are,” he said. “Whether it’s our local dealers or if they’re just six months behind us.”