Lake County received millions of opioids

Nearly 65 million opioid pills shipped over 5 years, investigations reveal

At the tail end of the opioid epidemic’s deadliest year to date, Lake County filed a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers, distributors, retail pharmacies and physician.

Lake County is one of roughly 2,000 government entities across the country suing companies like Purdue Pharma, Cardinal Health and Amerisource-Bergen Corp. for their alleged role in the opioid epidemic.

“This case is about one thing: corporate greed,” Lake County’s 258-page lawsuit filed in December 2017 reads. “Defendants put their desire for profits above the health and well-being of the County of Lake consumers at the cost of (residents).”

Thanks to a recent court order, it is now known how many oxycodone and hydrocodone pain pills flooded into Lake County, the state and the country between 2007 and 2012.

The Washington Post collected and shared data from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System, known as ARCOS.

The Post sifted through nearly 380 million transactions made

over that five-year period, analyzing shipments of oxycodone and hydrocodone, which accounted for threequarters of the total opioid pill shipments to pharmacies. More than 76 billion of those pills were supplied across the U.S. between 2007 and 2012.

Data shows that nearly 65 million oxycodone and hydrocodone pain pills were supplied to Lake County over that time period. That’s the equivalent of 40 pills per county resident per year.

The Washington Post notes that it’s important to remember the number of pills distributed in each county does not necessarily mean all those pills went to the people who live there.

“The data only shows us what pharmacies the pills are shipped to and nothing else,” the Post stated.

The Lake County General Health District last year released its most comprehensive report to date on drug overdose deaths, looking at data from 2013 to 2017. There were 329 drug overdose deaths in the county over that time frame.

The health district used vital statistics requested from the Ohio Department of Health and recorded demographic information about victims. That information included data like occupation, marital status, education level and setting

(home, hospital, hotel etc.).

Nearly half (46.8 percent) of Lake County’s overdose death victims over the fiveyear period in the report worked in the labor, maintenance and trade field.

“Obviously Lake County has a long history of manufacturing presence,” the health district’s Matt Nichols told The News-Herald last year. “But these are folks who are also probably disproportionately at risk for being underinsured or being uninsured and with that may not have access to services or may not be aware of services they do have access to, things like Medicaid.”

Nichols said given the disproportionate number of overdose deaths in that field, the report states that initiatives could “foreseeably be directed and delivered through relevant Lake County employers, such as those involved with manufacturing, construction and building trades, landscaping and general maintenance.”

Initiatives could include drug-free workplace and employee education programs as well as targeted naloxone education and distribution via Project DAWN.

Geauga County has also filed a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors.

“The opioid epidemic is particularly devastating in (Geauga County),” the lawsuit filed in March 2018 reads. “(Geauga County) is experiencing an excessive

drug overdose rate related to an excessive volume of prescription opiates caused by the wrongful conduct by the defendants...”

More than 14.74 million pills prescription oxycodone and hydrocodone pills were supplied to Geauga County in the 2006-2012 time frame, according to information from the ARCOS database. That’s enough for 22 pills per resident per year.

In Cuyahoga County, more than 206 million oxycodone and hydrocodone pills were supplied over that 7-year period. That’s enough for 29 pills per resident per year.

There were nearly 3.4 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pills supplied in Ohio as a whole during that timeframe. That equates to 42 pills per resident per year in the state.

The Ohio county that saw by far the most pills distributed per resident, per year was Jackson in Southern Ohio. The equivalent of 107 pills per person were supplied in Jackson, making it the only Ohio county to eclipse the 100 mark. The state with the next most pills supplied per person per year was neighboring Gallia with 88.

More than a million years of life lost

A recently released study estimates that more than a million years of life in Ohio were lost due to overdose deaths between the beginning of 2009 and the end of 2018.

The study comes from the Ohio Alliance for Innovation in Population Health, which states that 26,375 Ohioans died of drug overdoses over that period. Overdose victims lived a total of 1,090,964 years and lost an estimated 1,028,005 years of life — essentially cutting their lives in half.

The Alliance stated it analyzed data from the Ohio Department of Health’s Death Certificate files. Years of life lost was calculated by subtracting age of death from the expected lifespan based on data from the Social Security Administration.

“Years of life lost captures the experience of people who have lost loved ones better than counting the number of deaths,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, codirector of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. “It’s the years that they won’t get to experience birthdays or the years that they won’t see their loved ones grow and mature.

“This staggering figure of a million years of life lost reflects the many young

people who have died, and it’s hard to really conceive how much pain and suffering that figure represents.”

The study’s author, Orman Hall, estimated that there would have been less than 20,000 years of life lost on average annually in the mid-1990s.

“In 2017, there were more than 188,000 years of life lost. That’s a 900 percent increase,” he said.

Hall is the executive in residence at Ohio University’s College of Health Sciences and Professions. The college is part of the Alliance along with other higher education partners, health systems, insurers, policy groups and population health advocates.

According to the study, there were 22,137 years of life lost in Lake County due to drug overdose deaths between 2009 and 2018. There were 5,131 years of life lost in Geauga and 112,464 years of life lost in Cuyahoga.

Cuyahoga lost the most overall years of life to drug overdose deaths over that span. When calculating years of life lost per 100,000 population Cuyahoga County’s rate (8,785) was lower than three neighboring counties: Lake (9,623); Lorain (9,441); and Summit (9,286). Montgomery County in Southwestern Ohio had the highest years of life lost per 100,000 population with 16,606.

Montgomery County resident Scott Weidle knows multiple times over the pain and heartache of losing a loved one to an overdose.

Between 2005 and 2018, Weidle lost a son, stepson, nephew and brother to opioid overdoses. His son Daniel died in 2015.

“(Daniel) left behind three children, who will go on to live without their father for the rest of their lives,” Weidle said. “More than all of the years of life lost, I find it most troubling to reflect on who is missing out on those years of life; the children, the families and the friends.”

Following his son’s death, Weidle created daniels story. org, advocating for prescription opioid reform and increased care for people struggling with addiction. Weidle said on the website that his son was “repeatedly denied access to the life saving medication used to treat his illness.”

This March “Daniel’s Law” went into effect, permitting pharmacists to administer the opiate-blocking drug Vivitrol.

“This journey has allowed me to encounter hundreds of families, like my own, who feel the impact of the addiction epidemic every day,” Weidle said on the website. “It has encompassed all races, ages, and socio-economic groups. It is a universal problem which must be addressed through a comprehensive approach which includes the doctors who write the prescriptions, the pharmacists who fill them, the addiction specialists who provide treatment, and the manufacturers that make and promote these products.”

According to the study, there were 22,137 years of life lost in Lake County due to drug overdose deaths between 2009 and 2018.