The (Barre-Montpelier) Times Argus (Vt.), June 4:
The official confirmation this week of Prince’s death by opioid overdose is likely to reverberate in Washington, D.C., where lawmakers are trying to hammer out a deal on legislation attempting to stem a national crisis in abuse of those drugs.
In some ways, the high-profile celebrity death feels like old news here in Vermont. The Green Mountain State has been suffering at the hands of opioid addiction and the deadly mix of heroin and fentanyl for years now.
While the number of deaths from prescription drugs in Vermont has seemingly leveled off and even begun to go down, a new statistic has emerged in recent years showing that the number of deaths from heroin and its powerful painkiller cousin, fentanyl, has spiked.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid many times more powerful than heroin.
In one week last December, eight people died from a lethal strain of heroin in western Massachusetts, followed by a Christmas Eve overdose death in Newport. At the time, the Vermont State Police Narcotics Investigation Unit suspected that the “Hollywood” batch associated with the deaths may not be just heroin, but the deadly mix with fentanyl.
In April 2015, Donald Farnham, a 30-year-old Spaulding High School graduate and father, overdosed and died in the bathroom of the Randolph Cumberland Farms. In the same week, a man overdosed on fentanyl in Bethel but was revived with nine doses of Narcan. In the days leading up to those deaths, police around New England were asking law enforcement and drug users to be on the lookout for a deadly mix called “Ronald Reagan.”
A detailed data brief released by the Vermont Health Department last year went beyond statistics found in a similar report given to the Legislature. Statewide in 2012, there were 15 deaths in Vermont from heroin and fentanyl, according to statistics from the Vermont Health Department. In 2013, there were 53 deaths; last year, it was 42.
The most current data has yet to be compiled. The number of drug deaths does indicate Vermont remains in crisis. Officials here have been confronting what Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin has called the crisis of addiction to prescription drugs, heroin and, more recently, drugs such as fentanyl a top priority across the state, from the governor’s office down to the community level. The efforts appear to be paying off in at least one area, with fewer deaths from overdoses of prescription drugs. The big jump noted by the most recent data brief published by the state’s Health Department found the spike in heroin and fentanyl deaths up to a statewide total of 53 in 2015 from 42 in 2014.
At the national level, lawmakers are very mindful of the crisis.
“No one is immune,” said Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican. Portman is one of the main authors of the Senate legislation. “The heroin and prescription drug epidemic is devastating families and communities all over the country, and we need to get this bill to the president’s desk as quickly as possible.”
Lawmakers have exhibited widespread bipartisan agreement that Congress needs to take steps to improve drug treatment, to better control prescription drug distribution and to enhance training of emergency responders in treating overdoses. But progress on the legislation has been slowed by disputes over funding and by other maneuvering over legislation that members of both parties see as a selling point in the fall elections.
According to media reports, House and Senate negotiators have started preliminary talks on reconciling different versions of the opioid legislation that have been passed by the two chambers, and they now hope to produce a final package before the next recess, over the Fourth of July. Prince’s death is likely to spur them on. High-profile drug fatalities have had that effect in the past. The death from a cocaine overdose of the college basketball star Len Bias in June 1986 is widely credited with starting the crackdown of those years that came to be known as the war on drugs.
While Vermont is doing its part to fight this war on drugs, there is clearly still much more that needs to be done with regard to prevention, enforcement and rehabilitation. It is sad it took Prince’s death to wake up so many lawmakers to this crisis. But, now that they are aware of the issue and taking action, we will take all the help we can get.
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