Jan 22, 2018 3 min read

At first glance, it appeared to be good news that the number of drug overdose deaths in Washington County declined in 2017 after sharp increases in recent years. But, like everything else with the opioid epidemic, there are many tentacles to the problem.

According to the Washington County coroner’s office, 97 people died of drug overdoses last year – the vast majority from heroin and fentanyl – with another eight cases pending. That would be a slight decrease compared to the record 109 deaths in 2016.

While the county was on pace for another record year through August, something changed late in the year when there was only one overdose death in the final 33 days of 2017.

The question is, why? Authorities are now trying to figure that out.

Washington County District Attorney Gene Vittone touted a combination of tough law enforcement efforts to remove local drug distribution pipelines, along with preventative measures and an uptick in the use of naloxone, the antidote that revives people overdosing on opioids.

“Maybe what we’re doing is working,” Vittone surmised in mid-December. “It’s too early to tell.”

Vittone admitted he was tired of having discussions and summits about the opioid epidemic, but a conversation with Washington Drug & Alcohol Commission Executive Director Cheryl Andrews changed that.

In response, they formed the Washington County Opioid Overdose Coalition, which is made up, among others, of representatives from Vittone’s office, the Washington County Bar Association, faith-based organizations, government, addicts in recovery and the county’s Children and Youth Services, jail and legal aid organization.

That conversation Vittone was tired of having has turned into action.

“I don’t know what we’d do without them,” Vittone said.

But we shouldn’t look at the most recent overdose statistics as the end of the drug epidemic. If anything, the fight is just beginning.

Even with the lower death toll, 2017 was still deadlier than any other year besides 2016, and three times worse than 2010, when the epidemic began to skyrocket. That raises the question whether hovering around triple-digit drug deaths in the new normal for Washington County.

It shouldn’t be.

And just because the death toll leveled off this past year, that doesn’t mean the epidemic has diminished. The role played by naloxone, which Vittone said has been successfully administered by first responders 255 times since June 2015, could still be masking the underlying problem of drug abuse and crime.

Last year’s statistics are a promising sign, although even one drug overdose death is a tragedy. Still, too many unanswered questions still remain. That’s why law enforcement and drug treatment experts must remain vigilant.

There’s still more work to be done and too many lives at stake.