A multiyear experiment in Toledo, a working-class city on Lake Erie’s banks, holds clues to how the U.S. could get a handle on its overdose crisis, if politicians embrace the lessons. Fatal drug overdoses in the U.S., driven by the synthetic opioid fentanyl, increased by more than half during the pandemic and remain near record levels. In Toledo's Lucas County, they plummeted 20 percent between 2020 and 2022, Politico reports. Researchers credit the county’s effort to bring together health department workers, treatment providers, clergy and law enforcement to look at where overdoses and deaths were happening, so they could target resources to where they were most needed. The community support made it easier to overcome bureaucratic obstacles to getting drug users into treatment. People behind the initiative believe the approach could be a template for the U.S. if they can convince state and federal lawmakers to continue funding their efforts and to pass laws eliminating the red tape they encountered.
“That’s what we’re trying to move towards, but it’s really hard,” said Mahjida Berryman, Lucas County’s supervisor of overdose prevention and harm reduction. Berryman and her colleagues are fighting a sense of resignation caused by the pandemic spike. Congress has allowed landmark opioid-fighting legislation it enacted in 2018 to expire — and budgets are tight everywhere. Still, Lucas County defied the pandemic trend. It was one of 67 counties in four states to participate in HEALing Communities Study, a National Institutes of Health study that spent $350 million starting in 2019 to reduce fatal overdoses by 40 percent. Part of the study participants’ problem, in making a case to continue, is that they didn’t hit that goal. Pandemic headwinds and a rise in illicit fentanyl use made that impossible, according to a recent analysis that found the overall results statistically insignificant.
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