The opioid crisis continued to plague Tioga County in 2018.
According to the department of Health and Human Services figures, Pennsylvania ranks fifth in the nation in annual drug overdose deaths, standing at 4,627 in 2016.
Mental health counselor Carl Dawson, consultant to the National Drug Court Institute, presented the seminar “Rethinking Addiction,” sponsored by the Tioga County Partnership for Community Health and the Tioga County Department of Human Services in response to the opioid crisis.
About 115 people die each day from opioid overdose, Dawson said.
Medication, cognitive behavioral therapy and excerse all can combat the disease, he said.
The biggest obstacle to recovery, Dawson said, is relapse.
Tapering abusers off the addictive substance, rather than taking them off too fast is advisable, he said.Tapering, on the other hand, progressively reduces the strength of the drug over a period of time until the body no longer needs it.
Natural opiates include morphine and codeine, found in the opium plant. Synthetic opioids are made in a lab, to imitate and access the opioid receptors in the brain, Dawson said.
Dawson said that fentanyl is similar to morphine, in that it is there and then it is gone, but is 100 times more powerful than morphine, and 50 times more powerful than heroin.
Narcan is an opioid antagonist, which takes the natural occurring opioid away and blocks other opioids from taking that place. Picking up dust particles from Lofentanyl can kill a person, he said, and because of this, more and more EMTs and first responders are dressing in hazmat suits.
Many people continue to use because they are afraid of withdrawal symptoms, according to Dawson.
An example of the effect of the opioid addiction problem in Tioga County occurred in Blossburg in July when four people were charged in a meth bust after a local landlord discovered them in the process of moving their recently made stash. Meth is being made and sold or used as the crackdown on opioids continues, according to Blossburg police chief Josh McCurdy, who investigated the bust in July.
In August, the federal government responded to the opioid crisis with a proposal that would significantly cut opioid production by drug companies.
The Department of Justice and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration proposed a nationwide decreased in manufacturing quotas for the six most frequently misused opioids for 2019 by an average 10 percent as compared to 2018.
