LEXINGTON, Ky. — The number of drug overdose deaths declined last year in Kentucky for the first time since 2018, according to preliminary data.
Fatal overdoses dropped 5% between 2021 and 2022, the Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center found, using data from Kentucky’s Office of Vital Statistics. In 2021, a record 2,257 people died of a drug overdose in the commonwealth. Last year, that toll dropped to 2,127, Gov. Andy Beshear announced Thursday.
“While we find hope in the decline in drug overdose deaths, this remains a public health crisis that we must continue to work together to address,” the governor said in a news release.
The Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center said a more detailed report is forthcoming, and the state’s Office of Drug Control Policy has yet to release its official annual overdose fatality report for 2022. That report will include a breakdown of overdose deaths by county and demographic, and provide a detailed look at which drugs were most prevalent in these deaths. In recent years, fentanyl and its analogues have been a primary driver in fatal overdoses in Kentucky.
Dana Quesinberry, co-principal investigator for surveillance of the Kentucky Drug Overdose Data to Action (OD2A) program, said this new number shows prevention efforts are working.
“Drug overdose deaths in Kentucky have been on the rise for the last four years, with a spike at the start of the world-wide pandemic,” Quesinberry said. “The numbers from 2022 show that prevention efforts are working, and we share this news today to continue to inform prevention interventions as we work together across state and local governments to address this public health crisis and save lives.”
Fentanyl, among the most lethal of fully synthetic opioids, has long driven the state’s increase in deaths. Autopsies performed by the state’s Office of the State Medical Examiner, along with toxicology reports submitted by local coroners, show that 73% of all overdose deaths last year involved fentanyl — a 16% increase from 2020, according to the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet’s report. Ninety percent of those deaths involved opioids.
“Fentanyl changed everything,” leading to a spike of overdoses in 2018 and 2019, Van Ingram, director of the Office of Drug Control Policy, said in a previous interview with the Herald-Leader. “... one pound does as much as 10.”
“With heroin, it requires an agricultural product. You have to grow poppies, pay people to guard the product, harvest the product and turn it into a pharmaceutical product,” Ingram said. “(With fentanyl) you can skip all of those steps and make a pharmaceutical.”
Around the time use of fentanyl became more widespread, other efforts to curb the drug epidemic were also ramping up to address substance use disorder.
This includes increased access to treatment facilities and harm reduction efforts, and new legislation passed to address substance use disorder as a mental health issue.
In the most recent Kentucky Legislative session, lawmakers passed House Bill 353, which removes fentanyl testing strips from being considered drug paraphernalia under state law, unless they are found in the possession of traffickers. It also directs the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet to conduct a Fentanyl Education and Awareness campaign.
One study, focused on whether people who use drugs would use the testing strips, found that 95% of study participants — all young adults engaging in the use of opioids — were willing to use testing strips when taught proper use, according to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. The same study showed that 70% of participants found their drugs were contaminated by fentanyl.
In the 2022 legislative session, GOP Sen. Whitney Westerfield sponsored Senate Bill 90 — establishing a conditional dismissal program throughout the state which diverts people with mental health and substance use disorder from the carceral system.
Under that law, individuals can receive treatment for a behavioral health disorder instead of going to jail. With an agreement between the defendant and prosecutors, their charges are dismissed if they complete the treatment program.
