Fatal overdoses have fallen 66% in La Salle County

It was about Easter time when Rich Ploch decided to check his numbers. He couldn’t remember a fatal overdose since Christmas and wondered if the numbers had declined.

The numbers had indeed fallen, but La Salle County’s coroner didn’t shout the news from the rooftops. Overdoses come in waves, and there are reasons to worry that the trend wouldn’t hold.

Ploch crossed his fingers that the total would stay down the rest of 2023.

It has. As of Monday, the coroner’s office reported its 13th suspected overdose. The county is on pace for 14 this year, and that is 14 too many; but last year, there were 42 fatal overdoses, and Ploch welcomed the 66% drop.

It isn’t just La Salle County: Fatal overdoses in Bureau County have fallen from 10 to four over the past year.

“This is amazing to me,” Ploch said. “It was around April when we saw our first overdose, which had never happened before.”

There are explanations. Heroin use is falling, and police have new analytics to disrupt supply chains. Naloxone, which reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, is readily available. Support groups also have raised awareness.

Declining usage

Marc Hoster, commander of the Tri-County Drug Enforcement Narcotics Team, said he was not surprised to learn that La Salle County overdoses have tumbled by two-thirds.

“That sounds about right,” Hoster said. “That’s pretty close to the decline in arrests we’re making for heroin.”

Hoster said heroin is being displaced on the black market by methamphetamine. When Illinois legalized cannabis, Mexican drug cartels found a diminished market for low-grade cannabis and switched to producing meth. Meth cases have soared across the map, but the market share for heroin is drying up as a consequence.

Local law enforcement also has been aided by overdose detection mapping. When an overdose is reported, fatal or not, it gets logged into mapping software that helps police identify “hot spots” and pinpoint which dealers and supply lines need to be halted.

Hoster further noted a lone dealer may be responsible for multiple overdoses, and a timely arrest can save lives as well as bring down the felony total, which is poised to drop 8% this year.

Naloxone

The availability of naloxone has increased, notably in March, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Narcan nasal spray for over-the-counter use.

Luke Tomsha, executive director of the Perfectly Flawed Foundation, said he fully supported the decision to make naloxone available without a prescription, noting “it should have been over the counter a long time ago,” but he said simply increasing the availability of naloxone is not enough.

Tomsha said his and other support groups, such as Buddy’s Purpose, for several years have made naloxone available to the public with limited effect.

What did work was direct outreach. Perfectly Flawed established strategies to put naloxone into the hands of individuals struggling with addiction and who otherwise wouldn’t enter a pharmacy or police precinct to ask for it.

“There’s a large population that’s in the shadows that’s afraid to come forward,” he said.

That approach is making a difference. Tomsha said there are an average of 30 self-reported overdose reversals per month from the program among participants Perfectly Flawed serves in its multi-county region. (Tomsha emphasized that location data is neither collected nor shared to ensure privacy.)

“The numbers don’t include reversals by first responders, which I would suspect are decreasing,” Tomsha said. “However, first responders do report finding naloxone already administered on-site prior to arrival.”

Awareness

Other trends have contributed to the decline in overdoses. Many people struggling with addiction find relief using less dangerous drugs such as cannabis.

Perfectly Flawed provides “drug checking” to ensure alternative drugs are safe for ingestion.

Ploch said Perfectly Flawed and Buddy’s Purpose have kept the community well-informed about overdoses – “I do believe both those entities have helped make a difference in the Illinois Valley area,” he said – although the search continues for low-cost resources and treatment options.

Tomsha, for one, foresees no end to the need.

“Drug use is not going down,” Tomsha said. “People are still using and will continue to use drugs. A drug-free world is an impossible goal, but I feel strongly that a lot of the efforts we’ve putting in place have been a key factor in this decline.”