The Hamilton County Addiction Response Coalition is celebrating a win. Overdose deaths declined 9% last year, the second year of seeing a drop. In 2021, 515 people died from an overdose. That number fell 16% to 433 in 2022, and dropped to 393 last year.
Newtown Police Chief Tom Synan with the Coalition says it's a testament to the multi-pronged effort to address the opioid crisis. He says the work is best shown on Cincinnati's West Side, which used to have the highest number of overdose deaths.
"Now that area has seen a significant life expectancy increase. Every 10 days, someone was dying from an accidental overdose," he says. "We saw two huge increases of 66 days, and 133 days in that area where not a single person died from an overdose."
RELATED: Overdose deaths declined in 2022 in Hamilton County
Hamilton County Commission President Alicia Reece says local efforts are a model for the rest of the nation.
"One of the things that we talk about is that we listen to those who were involved in addiction, and how do we attack it?" she says. "We also are nimble, so as the drugs change, we were able to change as well with fighting against it."
Reece says Hamilton County is using money from the national opioid settlement to hire a coordinator for a jail-based treatment program, expand community-based outreach, and for recovery support services, like housing and childcare.
Chief Synan says fentanyl is still the "king" of deadly illicit drugs. "As long as fentanyl is in that supply, you're going to have that problem," he says. "If fentanyl was not involved in this, this would be a much brighter report."
Synan calls the opioid crisis the "new normal" that is not going to go away.
According to the Coalition's numbers, from 2012 to 2023, 4,933 people have died in Hamilton County from an overdose. The Coalition was formed in 2015.
