New Data Showing Opioid Epidemic is Worsening

Reading Eagle, Pa.

July 28—PHILADELPHIA —Pennsylvania's drug-related overdose death rate increased to 36.5 per 100,000 people during 2016 from a rate of 26.7 per 100,000 during 2015, one of many troubling statistics in a report issued Thursday by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The DEA put out its analysis of 2016 overdose deaths during a press conference attended by an array of federal, state and county officials.

The 102-page report gave a data-rich look at the still-worsening drug overdose crisis. It once was centered on heroin, but has evolved to focus on the synthetic opioid drug fentanyl, often manufactured in China or Mexico and shipped into the U.S.

"It is a public health crisis and a nightmare," Acting U.S. Attorney Louis D. Lappen said. "We have to attack the problem from every direction."

The DEA already had released the total number of Pennsylvania drug overdose deaths during 2016—4,642—which was an increase of 37 percent from 2015.

Fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances were found in 52 percent of the people who died. The previous year, only 27 percent of those who died had those substances in their bodies.

Gary Tuggle, special agent in charge of the DEA's Philadelphia Field Division, said he believed the demand for opioid drugs was greater than ever.

About 600 people each day across the nation begin using heroin, most of them after abusing prescription opioid drugs, he said.

"That is a lot of people and a lot of demand," he said.

Fentanyl, which is far more deadly than heroin, has become a product purveyed to opioid addicts by drug traffickers because it makes financial sense, according to Jeremiah Daley, executive director of the Philadelphia-Camden High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program.

He said the wholesale supply price of fentanyl was lower than that of heroin.

"It is about making money without regard to human life," he said.

The DEA put the overdose death rate in Berks County at 28.44 per 100,000 people during 2016. The figure for Chester County was 19.44 deaths per 100,000, and the figure for Montgomery County was 28.75 per 100,000.

Jennifer Smith, acting secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, said the report showed the state must strive to keep addicts alive, get more people into treatment and stress that every drug abuser has the chance to recover.

State troopers started carrying naloxone, a medicine that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, in 2015.

State police Col. Tyree Blocker said troopers have used naloxone 100 times since then. According to Smith, the total number of law enforcement overdose reversals involving naloxone since 2014 is about 3,800.

The report was prepared by the DEA and the University of Pittsburgh. The university's School of Pharmacy Program Evaluation Research Unit has been deeply involved in creating a website that offers data on overdoses statewide.

Attorney General Josh Shapiro called the report a "roadmap for how we are to combat this crisis."

Six months into his term in office -- which comes after the previously elected incumbent, Kathleen Kane, resigned following her conviction on perjury and other charges -- Shapiro said he is rebuilding the agency.

The rebuild includes stronger ties between federal and state agencies fighting the opioid drug crisis, he said.

Lappen, acting U.S. attorney for the eastern district, said his agency had prosecuted doctors and pharmacists who ran "pill mills" that distributed massive numbers of painkiller pills. The prosecution is assisted by laws that allow for a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence for professionals who illegally distribute a drug that causes a death.

"It is probably the most idiotic crime you can commit," Lappen said. "These doctors and pharmacists essentially go away for the rest of their lives. It is not worth it."

Lappen gave a succinct summary of the group's feelings.

He said, "We have got to hit a point soon where we can reverse the trend."