Opiate-related overdose deaths rose dramatically in Ramsey and Hennepin counties from 2015 to 2016, a report on metro-area drug-abuse trends has disclosed.
In Ramsey County, 62 accidental opiate-related deaths occurred last year, compared to 47 in 2015, a 32 percent increase, according to “Drug Abuse Trends in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Area” by Carol Falkowski, a leading expert on such trends.
The problem was even greater in Hennepin County, according to the report, with 153 accidental opiate-linked deaths in 2016 compared to 97 in 2015 — a 57.7 percent increase.
The report pinpoints a particular substance, synthetic fentanyl, “which has been increasingly identified in street drugs (mostly heroin, but also cocaine and methamphetamines) and in counterfeit pills sold on the black market (mostly painkillers, but also anti-anxiety medications),” the report said.
“Due to its high potency, fentanyl-related overdose deaths have likewise escalated,” the report stressed.
In Ramsey County, 17 fentanyl-related deaths occurred in 2016, compared with three in 2015. Of these deaths, six were due to fentanyl toxicity alone and 11 were mixed drug-toxicity deaths in which one of the drugs was fentanyl. The other drugs included cocaine, heroin, oxycodone, methadone and amphetamines.
Likewise, 39 of the opiate-related deaths in Hennepin County in 2016 involved fentanyl, compared with 9 in 2015. Thirteen of these deaths cited fentanyl toxicity alone as the cause of death, while the remainder involved mixed drug toxicity in which one of the drugs was fentanyl.
The report raised another troubling issue: Some who died from fentanyl overdoses may have been unaware they were ingesting the substance.
“While it is not uncommon for addicts to intentionally and simultaneously administer multiple drugs, these findings also suggest the distinct possibility that in some cases fentanyl was an unexpected, added ingredient in local illicit substances sold as heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and oxycodone — possibly unbeknownst to the sellers and/or end-users,” the report said.
Counterfeit pills believed to be pain medication that in reality, contained fentanyl, were implicated in the overdose death of music superstar Prince in 2016.
Four metro-area drug-overdose deaths that occurred between January 30 to February 17, 2017 were attributed to carfentanil toxicity. An additional death was in the non-metro town of Faribault, Minnesota.
Carfentanil is a veterinary drug that is 100 times more potent than fentanyl and 10,000 times more potent than morphine, and is used to sedate large animals, such as elephants. Those who died likely ingested an opioid that contained carfentanil, according to the report.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar in February co-introduced a bill to tighten security rules for postal mail, which has become a primary conduit of fentanyl and carfentanil from China, India and other countries.
“This is an epidemic and we can’t keep pussyfooting around,” Klobuchar said in a phone interview on Monday. “We need aggressive action … a comprehensive blueprint. The President has said he wants to do something about opioids, and with bipartisan support it’s time to move, not just with rhetoric but with action.”
Falkowski is the founder of Drug Abuse Dialogues, a Minnesota-based business that offers workshops on drug abuse. She is also the former drug abuse strategy officer of the Minnesota Department of Human Services and has been part of a nationwide drug abuse epidemiology network of the National Institute on Drug Abuse since 1986.
She releases a report on local drug trends annually.
Other findings in her latest report:
- About a quarter of admissions to addiction treatment programs cited heroin or other opiates as the main substance of abuse in 2016. As such, this opiate category outnumbered any other drug category except alcohol. Heroin accounted for a record 17.3 percent of total treatment admissions in 2016, compared with 3.3 percent in 2000.
- Reported heroin exposures increased from 204 in 2015 to 326 in 2016 — a 59.8 percent increase. Opium is often hidden in packages or suitcases transported from Asia to the Twin Cities and surrounding areas, for use in the Hmong community, the report noted.
- Ramsey County reported six cocaine-related deaths in 2015 and 10 in 2016, two of which also involved methamphetamines. In Hennepin County accidental cocaine-related deaths increased 30 percent (from 26 to 34) from 2015 to 2016.
- Methamphetamine-related deaths declined in both Hennepin and Ramsey County in 2016, although treatment admissions and drug seizures continued to rise. Ramsey County in 2016 saw five methamphetamine-related deaths, compared with eight in 2015.
- In 2016, 14.6 percent of admissions to addiction treatment programs involved marijuana as the primary substance problem, compared with 15.1 percent in 2015. Of these 3,254 admissions, 22.5 percent were younger than 18, and 35.7 percent were age 18-25.
