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There’s been a 32.79% decline in drug overdose deaths in West Virginia, surpassing the national average decrease, according to year-over-year data from September 2023 to August 2024 from the West Virginia Department of Human Services.
Dr. Stephen Loyd, director of the Office of Drug Control Policy, said data is collected from multiple sources, including state law enforcement, quick response teams (QRTs) and the medical examiner.
Dr. Stephen Loyd
Photo courtesy Dora Radford
The data also show a 41.7% decrease in overdose deaths from January 2024 to August 2024 when compared to the same period in 2023.
“This reduction translates into 386 more people that are alive today, continuing their journey toward recovery and stability,†the DOHS said in a news release.
Loyd said he believes one of the most significant strides the office has made on reducing overdose deaths is making reversal drugs, like naloxone, widely available.
“Literally everywhere we’ve saturated with overdose-reversal drugs,†Loyd said of West Virginia. “And then a lot of the different strategies there are starting to make an impact.â€
Loyd said QRTs in the state are able to connect people with treatment centers. He said the state is also treating addiction in jails and prisons, which are considered to have high-risk populations.
“When they’re discharged, they get about around a 40-times higher overdose death rate than a normal person in their first four weeks out of jail or prison,†he said. “And so it’s a lot of different efforts, and I don’t think anybody can put their finger on just one, but to me, those are the really big ones.â€
Loyd said the COVID-19 pandemic created a significant setback for the state in working to reduce overdose deaths. According to for fatal overdoses, overdose deaths by all recorded drug types were higher in 2020 than 2019 and 2021.
“COVID just shot that through the roof. We had, across the south, you had overdose death rates in individual states going up anywhere from between 50% and 100%,†Loyd said.
He said another jump in fatal overdoses happened when fentanyl was widely introduced into the drug supply between 2013 and 2015.
According to the fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is up to 50-times stronger than heroin and 100-times stronger than morphine. The CDC also reports it may take more than one dose of naloxone to reverse overdose deaths involving stronger substances like
Loyd said West Virginia is a target because of its interstate system and location, meaning when overdoses begin to spike in cities like Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio, the West Virginia Fusion Center is able to track down, almost to the hour, how long it’ll be before overdoses begin in areas such as ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, Huntington or Morgantown.
“One of the things our quick response teams do is that, knowing that that’s coming, because we’ve gotten spike alerts in the way that the data is tracked by law enforcement working in conjunction with us, we can saturate those areas with overdose reversal drugs before the overdoses even start to happen. It’s really quite amazing,†Loyd said.
Loyd said that while the data for 2024-25 hasn’t been completed yet, he believes the downward trend will continue.
Loyd said he talks with QRTs weekly, and to him, it looks like overdose death rates are continuing to decrease.
‘You can’t treat dead people’
Keeping people alive is the first step to treating addiction, Loyd said. “You can’t make any progress until you keep people alive. You can’t treat dead people.â€
Loyd said while there’s no one “turning point†or idea that led to the decrease the state is seeing, “it’s a multitude of things, and creating a system of care where people can get help.â€
He said another important prevention effort is teaching children about substances before they may use them.
The state should focus on prevention from elementary school through high school, he said.
“If we could prevent somebody from using before age 18, their chances of developing an addiction issue after age 18 are markedly reduced, even if they experiment,†Loyd said.
Stigma can delay people asking for help
Loyd has been a doctor for 25 years and has worked in addiction medicine for close to 15 years, and he said the largest barrier he’s noticed in prevention and rehabilitation efforts is stigma. No matter how elaborate the system of care is in a community, people may not reach out for help if they feel ashamed, he said.
Loyd said he’s coming up on 21 years of recovery himself, and the first thing to know is that addiction is “not a moral failure.†He said it’s also important to know that addictions are treatable.
“I knew for a long time, couple years at least, that I was in really bad shape and I was headed in a direction that I may not be able to come back from,†Loyd said. “I couldn’t tell anybody. And I thought, maybe I could figure out a way to stop using, and the truth is I never could. So that was the biggest hurdle.â€
He said once he took the initial step to ask for help, he was able to step into a “great system of care†because of his position as a physician. But he said he knows not everyone is as fortunate.
“A normal person, when they step out and ask for help, or they get caught, then we stick them in jail, give them a criminal record, or we fire them from their job so they can’t make a living for themselves or their family,†Loyd said.
People can’t recover completely by themselves and need the support of their communities, he said.
“That’s how I got where I am today,†he said.
Anyone in immediate need of assistance may call the 24/7 national Substance Abuse and Addiction Hotline at 1-844-289-0879.
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