This is unbelievable, and disgraceful.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Twenty-two people died of drug overdoses in Rhode Island during a 13-day period this month — far more than the average for that time period, health officials said Friday...Health officials offered no explanation for the spike in deaths, up from the usual three to four per week. The deaths involved a variety of illicit and prescription drugs and were scattered in 13 cities and towns around the state. Those who died from Jan. 1 through Jan. 13 ranged in age from 20 to 62.What's more:
Among those who died of overdoses during the past two weeks is a 23-year-old man who was in recovery and relapsed, said Tom Coderre, chief of staff for Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed and chairman of RICARES, an addiction recovery advocacy group. Coderre was planning to attend his wake Friday night.“If you have people dying we should be addressing this a little more aggressively,” Coderre said. “It’s like we can’t do anything fast enough.” Of the 22 deaths, 19 were screened with blood tests that found evidence of an overdose. Three cases were presumed overdoses because of “history and things found at the scene,” said Dr. Christina Stanley, chief medical examiner.Of the 19 screened, 13 indicated the presence of the painkiller fentanyl, but not the acetyl fentanyl linked to deaths last June. Other drugs detected included cocaine, opiates, benzodiazepines, methamphetamine, oxycodone and carisoprodol.
The real mystery (if you want to call it that) is this: With all of the mental health/substance abuse providers in the Providence area, fanned out among many clinics but largely concentrated at Butler Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital, why these horrible results? Rhode Island was already becoming known as the number one state for drug use.
Ironically, Dr. Fine, a public official, may already hold the answers to this abysmal situation. The fact is that many of Rhode Island's numerous mental health/substance abuse professionals are inept and corrupt. Most likely, Dr. Fine's health department has received copious complaints about some of them, and inaction has been the result. It seems as though many of these drug abuse victims have been "treated," only for their deaths to result from continued, illicit substance use.
By this time next year, Rhode Island will have a new governor. Let's hope it gets a new health director as well.
CRITICAL UPDATE, April 11:
In the past two and a half months, the total dead from overdoses has risen to 72 as of a week ago. This has attracted national attention, as this San Francisco-based publication demonstrates. It states:
Rhode Island Emergency Medical Services administered the overdose antidote Narcan 328 times between Jan. 1 and mid-March, said health department spokesman James Palmer...Health and public safety officials have taken a number of steps in response. Fine last month issued emergency regulations to make Narcan, also known as naloxone, more widely available, including to law enforcement agencies. The regulations allow the antidote to be prescribed not only to a person experiencing an overdose or at risk of one, but to family members and friends in a position to assist.WOW. Who EVER imagined that, in the seminal hippie subculture land of Haight-Ashbury, that a small, Northeast Corridor enclave would become THE NEWS about THE LATEST drug overdose epidemic? This strongly suggests that not even the Bay area is going through an epidemiological episode quite like Rhode Island's.
Several police departments, including state police and some municipal departments, have begun assigning officers to carry and use Narcan, or have started training.
A separate but tangential issue is this: while law enforcement officers here in Rhode Island are increasingly carrying and are able to administer Narcan, it wasn't too long ago that some of them dangled the handcuffs at the drug users instead. Beyond the continued failures of the Rhode Island health authorities (72 users dead now, up from 22, even when 22 was a crisis), this tragedy likewise represents a microcosm of failure for the Reagan-Bush-Clinton 'War on Drugs.' No?
