Jun 18, 2015 3 min read

A new report on injury prevention revealed Pennsylvania ranks ninth in the nation in drug overdose deaths.

Neighboring West Virginia comes in first and Ohio in eighth.

The commonwealth is also one of 36 states in which drug overdoses are the leading cause of injury.

While drug deaths are increasing at an alarming rate – overdoses have more than doubled over the past 14 years – experts believe initiatives exist to avert further tragedies.

“These things are pretty predictable and very preventable,” said Jeffrey Levi, Ph.D., executive director of Trust for America’s Health.

The health policy organization teamed with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to produce “The Facts Hurt: A State-by-State Injury Prevention Policy Report.” They identified 10 steps states can take to prevent overdoses and other injuries like motor vehicle accidents and homicides.

To reduce the country’s heroin and prescription-drug abuse epidemic, prescription drug monitoring programs and access to the overdose rescue drug naloxone are effective tools.

Strengthening collaborations between public health and other sectors is also effective in reducing injury and death, Levi said.

He pointed out the success of drug courts, in which nonviolent drug offenders are supervised and provided with access to treatment services, instead of just being given a jail sentence.

“We see a growing number of people in law enforcement recognizing that, first, it’s a health issue as well as criminal justice issue,” said Levi. “The first goal is to get them into treatment and get them off the streets.”

In Washington County’s drug court, the Restrictive Treatment Court Program, candidates must be addicted to drugs and show they can benefit from the program, which is used in lieu of a jail sentence. Frequent drug testing and counseling sessions are required.

Since 2012, 43 people successfully completed the program.

Jon Ridge, assistant chief probation officer for Washington County, said that drug courts were born out of necessity; in 1989, there was one drug court in the United States and now there are close to 3,000.

According to a report by the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, 85 to 95 percent of addicted prisoners relapse upon release. Conversely, people who go through drug court programs are six times more likely to stay in treatment long enough to get better and 75 percent of drug court graduates remain arrest-free at least two years after leaving the program.

Ridge said the criminal just system was not constructed to deal with the complex issue of addiction. He said it has become obvious that jurisdictions can’t simply punish the addiction out of someone.

“Addiction is a very ‘human’ problem. These are people that have parents or children … and they are not always bad people, but they have a very bad problem,” said Ridge in an email. “Drug courts provide structure, reintegration, restorative justice, treatment, health services … In my opinion, it’s one of the best things happening in the criminal justice world today, and the research concurs.”