NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The Connecticut Department of Public Health is sending out a message to the southern half of the state, altering them that 16 people have died from an overdose within the last two weeks.
Between July 1st to July 11th, CT DPH officials are reporting an uptick in crack and cocaine-related overdoses, both fatal and non-fatal. The largest increase was seen from the 8th through the 10th. Most of the overdoses occurred in the City of New Haven, but a total of eight towns and cities were impacted.
Here is the list:
• Derby
• East Haven
• Hamden
• Meriden
• Milford
• New Haven
• North Branford
• West Haven
The Commissioner for CT DPH said she can’t say with certainty that all of the cases were tied to fentanyl, but it’s likely.
“The chances that something has fentanyl is pretty high and that’s why the message is definitely, please keep Narcan around,” said Dr. Manisha Juthani, Commissioner of the Department of Public Health.
Narcan or Naloxone is a medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose. Dr. Juthani said it’s likely that those who lost their lives during the uptick were not carrying Narcan because they thought they were taking something else.
“It kind of just depends on what is the concentration of an opioid that is in such a small amount potentially that people are not recognizing it as they’re actually taking an opioid, right? In this situation, people thought they were taking crack cocaine,” Dr. Juthani said.
Dr. Juthani said they do tend to see overdoses rise during the summer, but in general, the number of overdoses has been on the rise during and after the pandemic.
“And so, we have seen more use overall and because of more episodes of fentanyl overdoses, particularly, and we know that Xylazine, which is an animal tranquilizer also contaminates a lot of these drugs, Narcan is not effective in that situation, but it causes other problems. So we’ve got this very messy and overwhelming situation right now with the use of opioids and people that are dying from it,” Dr. Juthani said.
During this time, CT CPH gets the message out to local health departments to get the word out about the spike. That involves a strategy they call harm reduction, which includes reaching out to anyone and everyone to distribute Narcan.
It could help in situations where drugs are contaminated without the user knowing what they’re taking. Which is something that could happen to anyone, at any time.
“The most important thing is, there’s no stereotype. You can’t look at someone and say, ‘Oh, they’re addicted.’ They are in workplaces you know, they are among us. And the shame of this particular illness is so deep that people don’t reach out for help,” said Fiona Firine, President & Co-Founder of For Cameron, Inc.
Firine knows all too well what the pain of losing someone to an overdose death feels like. She lost her son, Cameron, to a pure fentanyl overdose in 2019.
“Cameron was addicted to oxycontin, he was prescribed oxycontin when he was 14 for a football injury,” Firine said.
Firine said her son battled that addiction for a good part of his life. She said at the time of his death, he achieved recovery for a long time. He was also in school to become an addiction counselor. And then, he relapsed.
“So he took an oxycontin pill thinking that was a safe choice. And we didn’t know about fentanyl. And that oxycontin pill was actually just pure fentanyl, stamped as oxycontin,” Firine said.
So, during a spike like this one, Firine said it’s personal for her family and her organization. It inspires them to take action so nobody else has to go through what they did.
“We immediately think, ‘alright, go’ We’ve got to get the word out, if one person tells somebody else, tells somebody else, tells somebody else, if we offer resources, if we can take some of that shame away, then maybe we can do some good. So that was our immediate response,” Firine said.
Firine said most local health departments have Narcan for free, on top of fentanyl testing strips, which detect the presence of the opioid.
Police departments and other first responders are involved in getting the word out, too. When there’s a bad batch, they will go into the neighborhoods that are impacted.
“We look at that with our health departments, we look at the numbers, we look at the areas, but that’s not what’s going on now,” said Chief Karl Jacobson with the New Haven Police Department. “It’s spread out throughout New Haven, throughout the Greater New Haven area, other communities are experiencing this.”
A spokesperson for the city, Lenny Speiller, said seven of the 16 overdose deaths happened in New Haven specifically from July 1st to the 12th. Six out of the seven people were males, and the ages range from 19 to 54 years old. Speiller said the breakdown of substances found in those who died goes as follows:
- Crack cocaine= 4/7
- Heroin= 1/7
- Fentanyl= 1/7 (but most likely in others as well)
The New Haven Health Department provides free fentanyl test steps and Narcan with training, with limited supplies.
For anyone who needs help finding resources, go to ConnectGNH.org.
People can also contact For Cameron Inc.. if they’d like them to visit their school/ their children’s school. The organization has a youth-friendly presentation for children on awareness.
Julia LeBlanc is a reporter at FOX61 News. She can be reached at jleblanc@fox61.com Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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