Not one Ohioan died of a fentanyl-related overdose in 2011. Last year? The death toll reached 1,155, as reported by the state Department of Health last week. The alarming trend, 75 deaths in 2014, 503 in 2014, reflects the expanding heroin epidemic. Fentanyl, a synthetic narcotic many times more potent than morphine, has emerged lately as a heroin alternative…

Heroin remains the leading killer, overdose deaths climbing statewide to 1,424 last year from 1,196 in 2014. Yet communities now are seeing something worse surface, cartfentanil, an animal sedative some 100 times more powerful than fentanyl…

The state … has taken steps, including a crackdown on the abuse of prescription drugs and the launch of the StartTalking! program. Still … it is hard to side with Gov. John Kasich’s statement last week: “… we’re beginning to see it’s going to change.”

What resonates more deeply is the assessment of state Rep. Greta Johnson, who wrote the governor in July urging the formation of a task force or a legislative committee to develop a more comprehensive and coherent statewide approach to the epidemic…

If the state helps in making available naloxone, a drug that reverses the effects of the opioid on the brain, officials also should know that many cities and counties are struggling with inadequate resources…

 

Akron Beacon Journal