By Randy Ludlow, The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS – Despite a major push to stem Ohio’s opioid crisis, the state’s overdose death rate has climbed to 14 a day — the third-biggest jump in the nation.
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The fatality rate leaped by 39 percent between mid-2016 and mid-2017, according to new federal figures. The increase to 1,469 deaths trailed only the 43.4 percent hike in Pennsylvania and 39.4 percent increase recorded in Florida.
In all, 5,232 Ohio overdose deaths were recorded in the 12 months ending June 31, 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. That’s also third in the nation, falling behind only Florida (5,540) and Pennsylvania (5,443).
The escalation of drug deaths in Ohio was nearly three times the 14.4 percent increase in deaths nationally, which grew to 66,972, according to provisional numbers.
The federal report noted that the 5,232 drug OD deaths in Ohio accounted for 4.3 percent of all deaths in the state and warned that the numbers likely are low due to incomplete reporting.
Marcie Seidel, the executive director of the Prevention Action Alliance, an Ohio nonprofit that seeks to prevent substance abuse, said the CDC data confirmed her “worst fears.” “This is the worst public health crisis of our times, and we need to have a coordinated response to it from the top down,” Seidel said.
The state reports spending more than $1 billion a year, much of it in Medicaid to treat the drug-addicted working poor, to battle the opioid crisis, but critics say much more must be done.
Limits on prescriptions have helped reduced deaths linked to prescribed opioid painkillers, but the deaths caused by illicit street sales of fentanyl, and drugs laced with the killer synthetic, continue to spiral. Fentanyl accounted for 58.2 percent of deaths in 2016, up from 37.9 percent in 2015.
The state also is moving to impose new regulations that would require drug distributors to halt and report suspicious orders of opioids.
“Ohio can and must do better to end the needless suffering caused by the grip of addiction and overdose deaths,” said Lori Criss, chief executive officer of the Ohio Council of Behavioral Health Providers. “We need a full continuum of treatment and recovery services in every community, and we need prevention and early intervention services in every school.”
Ohio Department of Health spokesman Russ Kennedy said Ohio’s epidemic is evolving because of the availability of stronger street drugs like fentanyl, but he added that Ohio’s prescription drug abuse is declining.
“Ohio is seeing important progress in reducing the number of prescription opioids available for abuse, which is significant because their abuse is frequently a gateway to illicit drug use later on,” he said.