Erie County leaders are reporting a spike in opioid-related deaths during the month of December. Health Department officials are investigating whether they may be linked to a new synthetic form of the drug.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz reported on Thursday that 21 deaths since December 19 are believed to be related to opioid overdoses. It is believed as many as 21 more occurred during the first 18 days of the month.
Six suspected cases were reported to the Erie County Medical Examiner's Office on one day alone, December 27.
"It's scary because we've been doing pretty good with regards to reducing the amount of deaths as the result of the opioid epidemic this year," said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. "But this last nine-day period just exploded with numbers we haven't seen in quite some time."
County health officials are, according to Poloncarz, now conducting toxicology tests to determine whether a synthetic opioid drugs may be playing a role in the sharp increase in fatalities. The drug 3-methylfentanyl, for example, is linked to several recent deaths in Ohio and Illinois.
The synthetic drugs are typically made overseas,
"The Chinese are notorious for what would be considered 'bathtub pharmacies' in which they're producing and constantly coming up with new chemical combinations," Poloncarz said. "Most of the heroin itself comes in from Mexico. It's cut in Mexico but usually the additives are added here in the United States."
Those who add it, he continued, often times do not realize how potent the synthetics are.
Heroin and fentanyl, health officials point out, are typically not the starting points of most addiction cases. It usually begins with prescription drugs legally dispensed for legitimate medical purposes. It's when those supplies run out that the addict turns to other drugs to continue feeding their need.
Poloncarz says the projected death toll in Erie County will be somewhere between 350 and 400 in 2016. Earlier this year, amidst a similar spike in opioid-related deaths, health officials feared there would be as many as 500 fatalities in the county this year. This latest upward trend shows, according to Poloncarz, that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to battle an ongoing epidemic that is affecting the entire nation.
"It's disappointing because we were seeing progress," he said. "I'd like to think we are still seeing progress. We have gotten more people into treatment facilities. More people are using our opiate and drug addiction hotline to help them. But when you get numbers that show that 21 people died in a nine-day period and six alone on December 27, something's still bad out there that we need to address.
"We want the public to understand that this problem isn't going away. It's going to take time."
