Carroll County saw a 76 percent increase in fatal drug and alcohol overdoses in the first six months of 2018 over the first half of 2017.
That’s according to new statistics from the Carroll County’s Sheriff’s Office, which recorded 44 overdose deaths from January through June this year. There were 25 such fatalities recorded in the first six months of 2017, and 48 in all of 2017, according to Sheriff’s Office statistics.
Those statistics are still being updated, Sheriff’s Office Crime Analyst Christine Garvin noted in an email, as the June 2018 count does not include a pending report from the Maryland State Police, while the causes of some deaths have yet to be resolved by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
On Wednesday, July 11, Wesley Freedom United Methodist Church will host the third in a series of quarterly free question-and-answer sessions on the topic of addiction.
As the data stand, Carroll saw two deaths related to prescription opioid drugs from January through June, seven deaths related to heroin, 16 related to the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl, seven attributed to other drugs and 12 that were still pending analysis by the medical examiner.
There were seven fatalities in the month of June, though that number may rise with the addition of state police data, an increase over the five deaths in May and four in April. March 2018, however, remains the deadliest month recorded by the Sheriff’s Office in terms of overdose deaths, with 11 fatalities.
Keeping with a trend persistent across several years of data, deaths due to prescriptions opioids have remained low, deaths related to heroin have stayed flat or slightly decreased, while deaths related to fentanyl have increased: There were nine heroin-related deaths in the first half of 2017, and seven in the first half of 2018; 14 fentanyl-related deaths in the first half of 2017, and 16 in that same period this year.
Forty-eight people died of a drug or alcohol overdose in Carroll County in 2017.
This is a frustrating trend for those working to combat the addiction epidemic, according to Carroll County Health Officer Ed Singer, because while it seems as if prevention efforts are slowing the growth of the overall pool of people in active addiction, drugs like fentanyl are leading to more deaths among those already using.
Drugs such as fentanyl are a real problem for police efforts, too, Singer said, as such a small amount is so potent it can be easily hidden, shipped in the mail and difficult to interdict.
One positive sign, Singer said, though it is anecdotal, is that in his conversations with medical professionals they have told him many patients have gotten the message that opioids are not always the best answer for every form of pain.
And there are success stories that are not told in the numbers of overdoses, Weber said.
In the long term, Singer said, prevention efforts among middle- and high school-age students may be the ultimate key to solving this problem — but it may take time.