One of a series
Though overdose fatality rates in Lucas County remain high compared to previous years, overdose-related 911 calls have declined steadily from pre-pandemic levels.
Lt. Steve Rogers of the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office, who oversees the Drug Abuse Response Team (D.A.R.T.), said that the “slight decrease” in overdose calls is still a positive sign in the eyes of law enforcement and responders.
But this decrease contrasts from the climbing number of overdose deaths during and after the pandemic, raising questions about the reach of emergency services and peoples’ willingness to involve the authorities.
From January to May 2017, 2018, and 2019, people made overdose-related 911 calls 882 times, 804 times, and 796 times, respectively.
At the start of the pandemic — from January, 2020 to May, 2020 — emergency services received 765 overdose calls. In the same six-month time period in 2021, 729 calls were made. But in 2022 and 2023, 599 and 594 overdose calls were made to 911 during the first six months of those years, respectively.
Meanwhile, engagement with substance use treatment options remains high: D.A.R.T. is currently working with about 272 individuals, 76 of whom are actively in treatment programs that D.A.R.T. helped refer them to.
Approximately 35 people have completed treatment but remain in contact with D.A.R.T., while the team is still trying to contact about 161 people to discuss being reconnected with treatment.
“For our community here in Lucas County, the numbers have slightly decreased over the last few years as far as calls have been placed into 911, which is a good sign,” Lieutenant Rogers said in a recent interview.
“At D.A.R.T., we are still getting a decent amount of referrals, which is — I don't want to say it's a good thing — but it's a good thing that people are reaching out for assistance,” he said.
Overdose death numbers for Lucas County in 2023 were not immediately available, but recent data shows overdose deaths have increased to new heights. County overdose deaths rose about 162 percent from 2015 to 2020, and though deaths dropped 7 percent in 2021, there was another uptick in 2022.
The coroner’s office expected death numbers to stay high in 2023, as authorities responded to at least 76 overdoses and at least 16 fatal overdoses in January, 2023 alone.
Disparities in overdose numbers exist across ZIP codes in the area.
Tony Dible, overdose prevention program coordinator at the Toledo Lucas County Health Department, said that the 43605 ZIP code, which encompasses East Toledo, is consistently one of the highest-burdened regions, as well as some of the North Toledo ZIP codes.
But since many people who use drugs or experience substance use disorder are difficult for providers to reach, it’s impossible to quantify overdose numbers.
Because of the social stigma around seeking help and fears associated with making contact with police, some people avoid calling emergency services or going to law enforcement for referrals, Mr. Dible said.
“What I can say without having specific numbers is that the burden remains high,” Mr. Dible said. “We certainly see the risk factors are much higher in folks who are less connected, and I think COVID only exacerbated many of those problems. So people are cut off from a lot of key supports.”
Other organizations have had more success engaging with the “hard to reach” population who may avoid emergency services.
Ashlee Schleter, a northwest Ohio-based outreach worker with the SOAR Initiative, makes contact with people on the streets by “meeting them where they are” through harm reduction, setting up tables of supplies on downtown streets and sending text updates with resources to people who sign up for them.
This helps people who may not feel ready to get in contact with law enforcement or treatment options a way to avoid overdoses, she said.
Ms. Schleter said she believes overdoses skyrocketed during the pandemic and dropped in 2022 because of pandemic-era stressors and social conditions, which rendered many people who previously achieved sobriety depressed, out of work, and bored.
She said that people still tend to flock to her and her tables for supplies like clean syringes, opioid overdose reversing naloxone, and fentanyl test strips, and that she’s able to get shipments of 48 units of naloxone at once because of the demand.
Harm reduction might be more comfortable for people than being put in controlled treatment programs or going to drug courts, which are presented as options and consequences for those who receive attention from the authorities.
“You can push somebody for treatment as often as you want, but you're going to push them away. And they're gonna want to be around somebody who they feel like understands them,” Ms. Schleter said. “It is still a kind of taboo thing.”
First Published July 24, 2023, 10:14 p.m.
