Drug Overdose Deaths Rise in Ohio and Virginia

(Winter 2016) As we reported in September, data from Ohio, unfortunately, continues to confirm the growing crisis of unintentional drug overdoses. Accidental overdoses remained the Buckeye State’s top cause of injury-related deaths in 2015 – outpacing the number of auto accident fatalities each year since 2007. In fact, inadvertent drug overdoses were responsible for the deaths of over 3,000 Ohioans in 2015. This marks an all-time high, eclipsing Ohio’s 2014 statistic of 2,531 lives lost to drugs.

Contributing to this increase is fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid used to lessen extreme pain. It is approximately 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. Fentanyl has fueled growing overdose deaths in both 2014 and 2015, as it is often mixed with other drugs, such as heroin, without the users knowing. In fact, heroin was involved in nearly half of all recent accidental overdose deaths within the state. Ohio lost 503 residents to fentanyl-related deaths in 2014. This number increased more than 100% in the following year, with the incidence greatest among individuals ages 25 to 34.

Just a couple states away, the overdose landscape sadly resembles Ohio’s own. Virginia’s deadly overdose statistics have trended up since 2007, with individuals between the ages of 25 and 44 comprising over 50% of all fatalities linked to accidental drug overdoses. Approximately 7,400 Virginians have perished from a drug overdose between 2007 and 2015; about 75% of these individuals died due to some form of opioid.

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