Public health experts say that expanding access to testing strips and overdose reversal drugs is reducing fatal overdoses nationwide and in Michigan.
Overdose deaths fell by as much as 36% in Michigan from February of last year to this February, according to the state's provisional death data. The data may overlook some overdose deaths, but health experts say overall they are trending downward.
“I am cautiously optimistic,” said Michigan’s chief medical executive, Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian.
Opioid overdose deaths are still higher than pre-pandemic levels, but Bagdasarian credits public health officials for reversing the trend. She said distributing fentanyl and xylazine testing strips directly to users has helped. So have the efforts to make naloxone, also known as Narcan, available in vending machines and old newspaper stands.
“However, there's one area where I am particularly concerned, and that is that we continue to have huge racial disparities in our overdose deaths,” Bagdasarian said.
“Our overall number of overdose deaths have declined because overdose deaths in the white community have declined. But we have not seen a promising trend in the black community and the disparities have continued to widen.”
According to preliminary data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Black residents are overdosing at a rate 2.7 times higher than that for white residents. Bagdasarian said reducing that disparity is a priority for her office.
Bagdasarian also warned that the street-drug landscape is constantly changing. She said her office is seeing stronger opioids as well as fentanyl contamination with drugs that haven’t been approved for humans.
“We are seeing contamination of street drugs with things like xylazine and medetomidine, and both of these are veterinary tranquilizers that aren't directly impacted by naloxone. However, our advice to folks is the same. We still want people to keep naloxone on hand.”
That’s because naloxone will still reverse the effect of the opioids that may have been mixed with other drugs. Bagdasarian explained that opioids cause respiratory depression and naloxone helps to get people breathing again.
Guy Miller is the health officer for Berrien County. He said these emergency or "tertiary" measures are successful, but do little to address the root cause of addiction.
“The tertiary prevention is doing a great job at suppressing the number of deaths, but it's not actually providing the solution to the opioid crisis, which is, how do we stop people from entering into a substance use disorder or a drug or opioid dependency?”
Miller said investing in preventative measures like education and counseling, as well as recovery support for users is cost-effective and necessary to turn the tide on the opioid crisis.
