Opioid Epidemic Rages On

(Fall 2018) Within a 15-year span, from 2001 to 2016, U.S. deaths linked to opioids such as Vicodin, OxyContin, heroin and the man-made opioid fentanyl soared by over 340%. These overdoses were concentrated among a demographic in the prime of their lives.  A new study reported that opioids are currently the cause of 20% of fatalities among Americans aged 25 to 34.

One component of reversing this trend is to alter physicians’ prescribing tendencies. Efforts to do so seem to be helping somewhat, but the crux of the solution is appropriate opioid addiction treatment, namely medication-assisted therapy (MAT) with drugs such as buprenorphine, methadone and naltrexone. These medications shut down opioids’ effects in the brain or help to alleviate withdrawal symptoms and cravings.

Currently, however, the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found that only about 50% of private programs provide a MAT offering. Rural areas are some of the locations hardest hit by the opioid crisis, yet sadly treatment can be scarcest in these parts of the country.

To put the impact of fatal overdoses into another perspective, consider this statistic: Ohioans have given up more than 500,000 years of life due to deadly opioid overdoses from 2010 through 2016. During this period, the overdoses robbed an average of 40 years from the lives of more than 13,000 Ohioans who perished. Only considering 2016 data, the deaths, primarily from fentanyl and heroin, shaved over a year from the average Ohioan’s life expectancy.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report recently revealed that the number of fatalities caused by fentanyl and its analogs jumped by 100% during the period between January through June 2017 when measured against the July through December 2016 timeframe. Unfortunately, this confirms recent accounts of a spike in the drug’s usage and its impact on overdoses. The CDC also released information noting that over 50% of opioid overdose fatalities are due to man-made drugs.

Analysts found that more than 20% of individuals who did not recover from an overdose in early 2017 had fentanyl analogs in their bodies. Over 10% were identified as having the strongest fentanyl analog in the United States, carfentanil, in their systems; this drug is 10,000 times more potent than morphine. When found, fentanyl analogs were a factor in overdose fatalities in close to all cases.

The CDC warns that individuals who have overdosed on synthetic opioids such as fentanyl or carfentanil may require more than one dose of the opioid overdose-reversal drug naloxone.

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