CLEVELAND (AP) — Ohio’s largest county saw a record number of heroin overdose deaths last year.
The
medical examiner in northeast Ohio’s Cuyahoga County said Thursday that
heroin killed 195 people there in 2013, shattering the previous record
of 161 fatal overdoses in 2012. It killed more people than homicide in
the county of about 1.3 million people last year.
Officials say
that the pain pill epidemic has been a gateway to heroin, which is
cheaper and has become easier to get than prescription opiates.
"It
was my hope that 2013 would see the number of heroin fatalities
decrease, but that was not the case," said the county medical examiner,
Dr. Thomas Gilson. "It is encouraging to see that the rate of rise of
heroin deaths did drop compared to the previous year."
The county had 107 heroin-related deaths in 2011. In 2012, that number grew by 50 percent.
Gilson tells the Northeast Ohio Media Group (http://bit.ly/1fWNjAi ) that a push by the county to
expand the distribution of the overdose
antidote naloxone has led to the reversal of 31 possible overdoses.
The
statistics showed suburban residents accounted for 75 of the overdose
deaths. More than 26 percent of the people killed by heroin in the
county were female, the highest percentage ever.
Less than 25
percent of the people killed by heroin in the county last year were
between the ages of 19 and 29, the lowest percentage since 2008.
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Information from: The Plain Dealer, http://www.cleveland.com
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