ARTICLE
Despite a flurry of legislation in Harrisburg, near constant attention by the news media and expanded access to the overdose antidote naloxone, opioid drug overdoses in Lehigh County surged in 2016. There were at least 149 overdose deaths involving heroin and other opioids including prescription painkillers last year, a figure that is sure to rise with the results of 40 as-yet incomplete autopsies, according to Lehigh County Chief Deputy District Attorney Joseph Stauffer, who spoke to a panel Tuesday organized by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce. Already, last year's death toll represents a 31 percent increase over the 114 opioid overdose deaths in 2015. That year, drug overdoses became the leading cause of accidental deaths in the United States, surpassing car accidents, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. "There is still a large part of the population that is addicted," said J. Layne Turner, administrator of the Lehigh County drug and alcohol program, who also was part of the panel. But the good news, he said, is that more people are voluntarily seeking treatment — before becoming entangled in the criminal justice system. In a brief slide show, Stauffer conveyed the staggering math that makes the heroin trade such a compelling and seemingly irrepressible enterprise: One gram of heroin is about the equivalent of a sugar packet, and that gram can be split into 50 heroin bags that sell for $10 each. That's $500 for a sugar packet's worth of drugs. But who knows how much was not seized? With so much heroin and other opioids on the county's streets, naloxone was administered 1.4 times a day on average. Gregory Grey, a Bethlehem salon owner, told the several dozen Chamber luncheon attendees about his own recovery from opioid addiction. He said he didn't believe he had a problem until he could no longer hide his drug habit. "People don't recover in a vacuum. People recover with the help of other people," including the professionals who work at rehabilitation centers, he said. Grey noted that many people who turn to drugs do so to escape from or compensate for other problems. "For me, recovery isn't just about drugs. ... It's about finding a new way to live your life," he said. Read the original article here.