By D. Kevin McNeir
Special to the AFRO
From 1999 to 2020, opioid overdose deaths claimed the lives of over half a million Americans, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with opioid-involved deaths increasing each year. Even more disturbing, 2021 marked the first time the U.S. surpassed 100,000 related deaths in a single year.
Yet, while a majority of adults – 61 percent – consider the misuse of opioids in the U.S. to be a major public health emergency, based on results of a Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) poll conducted in May 2024, many Americans tend to believe that the opioid crisis is more of a national problem (68 percent), than one impacting their own state (53 percent) or their community (36 percent).
Even in areas of the U.S. where drug overdose rates have increased, public concern about addiction is down, according to a Pew survey from May 2022. As for those who come from low-income or minority communities, the BPC poll indicates that they are less likely to say the opioid crisis is a major problem in their respective communities than adults who are not. However, as data from sources including the CDC indicate, they would be wrong – dead wrong.
One major takeaway from the BPC poll illustrates a change in demographics over the past five years among those with the highest drug overdose mortality – from White Americans in the Northeast to other ethnic populations. Contrary to popular belief, mortality has increased by 81 percent among both Black Americans and Native Americans, and by 67 percent in the West since 2019.
Further, even when Black and Native Americans recognize that they have a problem with opioid use, they often find it more difficult than Whites to secure affordable, effective and convenient treatment – not to mention the added burden of the stigma related to opioid addiction that’s particularly prevalent within minority communities.
Prince William County, Va., takes the lead identifying, resolving gaps in services
The Prince William Health District (PWHD), part of the Washington metropolitan area, whose county seat is the city of Manassas and is located in Northern Virginia, recently released the results of a 10-month community-based needs assessment which evaluated factors that contribute to opioid-use disorder.
With funding from the Virginia Department of Health’s (VDH) American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Community Engagement grant opportunity, the three-year award supports community engagement efforts among key stakeholders and community members who have a shared vision of preventing opioid-related deaths and injuries in the region. With goals rooted in a CDC-sponsored initiative, facilitators followed the CDC’s Public Health 3.0 model in efforts to ensure that appropriate information remains available to support individuals and their families struggling with mental and behavioral health challenges.
Kirstin Sievers, a community engagement specialist for PWHD who has served as an addiction advocate for 10 years, joined the district just over a year ago and said her commitment to her new role is due, in part, to “lived experience.”
“My sister is a longtime drug user so I am a staunch advocate for families and for securing more resources to support them,” Sievers said. “In many ways, the opioid crisis is a lot like the AIDS epidemic, and it’s not going anywhere fast.
“It’s this generation’s AIDS crisis,” she continued, “and it’s like a Boeing 357 fatally crashing every day. We’re losing about the same number of people, which we estimate at 350, as those aboard that jet to drug overdose deaths each day. However, the greatest contributor to those deaths is opioids because unlicensed chemists, particularly along the East Coast, are putting all kinds of things in pills, especially fentanyl.”
Acting Prince William Health District Director Dr. Olugbenga Obasanjo noted that as part of the grant, the assessment gathered input from September 2023 to June 2024 from various populations, including Latino communities, adolescents, individuals in active drug use and those in recovery, through interviews and listening sessions.
“By working across systems of care to understand the burden of addiction in our communities, we can begin to address disparities surrounding opioid use disorder in the Greater Prince William region,” he said in a press release.
And given recent statistics, the challenges health officials face cannot be overstated.
In the Greater Prince William Region, there were 454 OUD deaths (opioid use disorder) from 2018 to 2023. Nonfatal opioid-related overdoses have more than doubled since 2017. Meanwhile, overdoses continue to rise among the 20-24 age group, adolescent females and Black and Latino adults.
“We’re doing our best to tackle the increase in deaths but we know that nonfatal opioid overdoses are widely underreported,” Sievers said. “We believe that’s because a lot of people do not seek traditional means of care when they experience an overdose. We estimate that the number is probably two or three times greater because not everyone is captured or wants to be captured in the data often for fear of legal repercussion.”
Reflections from advocates working with communities of color
While November will mark his third year clean and sober, Jonathan Torres, 25, once struggled with opioid addiction and was even incarcerated for 3 ½ years. Today, the Mexican American, born in Fairfax, Virginia, serves as a certified peer recovery specialist who works primarily with Latino youth, 18-25 years old, in Prince William County.
He said he became addicted to opioids soon after being prescribed pain medicine from a physician.
“I was prescribed Percocet and when the prescription ran out, I turned to the streets – ‘M30’ blue pills laced with fentanyl because they were significantly stronger than Percocet and cost a lot less, sometimes as cheap as $5 a pill,” he said. “The danger lies in the different amounts of fentanyl that people put in the pills. You never know how strong they are and you never know what they’re laced with. Sometimes, they’re so potent that you can overdose just by touching or inhaling them.”
Torres’ road to recovery began because of his involvement with the county’s Drug Court.
“The judge assigned me a great case worker who really cared about me and knew that I needed guidance – someone positive in my life,” he said. “I had to stay clean if I didn’t want to be sent back to jail, and eventually the things I was required to do became habits.”
The recovering addict said he heard that some of his peers had gone through training to become recovery specialists and he became interested in doing the same.
“Mostly, I listen to other young people like me these days, share my story, educate them on the dangers they face and help them access resources. But you can only help those who want to be helped,” Torres said.
Dr. Miranda M. Hill, 63, who in July took over as the director of drug information at Hampton University’s School of Pharmacy and also serves as an associate professor of pharmacy practice, was first exposed to the devastating effects of opioid addiction during her formative years in her hometown of Detroit.
“In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, as Black men returned from Vietnam, many of them, because of the hell they experienced on the frontline, suffered from mental, physical and emotional pain and trauma,” said Dr. Hill, author of “Opioid Drug and Alcohol Abuse – Information Parents Must Know.”
“There was no real help for them to deal with post-traumatic stress or the other problems they faced,” she said. “And there were no programs to help them overcome their addiction to opioids or other drugs.”
One of her neighbors, a veteran, died from an overdose when she was 9, Hill said. But then the epidemic hit even closer to home.
“My older brother, Gregory Jones, who also served in Vietnam, went through a vicious cycle of overdoses, detox, rehabilitation and relapses for 50 years. He died on Aug. 5, 2021, from an overdose of fentanyl. He was 68 years old,” she said.
“He received all kinds of medals, including the Purple Heart and he really tried but he just couldn’t beat it,” she added. “But the worst thing is, he had been dead for 10 days before we located his body in the city morgue. It had been really hot that summer and his body was so swollen and deformed that we had to have a closed casket funeral. I only have photos to remind me of how handsome he once was.”
Death can be quick for opioid overdoses, Hill said, with signs that include labored breathing, foaming from the mouth and excessive sweating. The doctor advised that everyone keep Narcan, the brand name for Naloxone, which is used to treat narcotic overdoses, in their medicine cabinets, in their cars, even in the office, “just in case.”
“Fentanyl is a drug that’s 800 to 900 times more potent than morphine,” she said. “Its impact on the body can be abrupt and deadly because when it’s mixed in the streets, one never knows how potent the drug they’re getting may be.”
Hill also addressed some of the specific sociological issues faced by African Americans that make them vulnerable to addiction and death.
“Blacks are often reluctant to seek help because of distrust of medical professionals, not only because there are so few Black physicians but because of tragedies like the Tuskegee Experiment when doctors purposely exposed Black men to syphilis,” she said.
“Blacks also face disproportionate levels of depression, stress and anxiety while just trying to cope with life and our environment. And many Blacks, because we don’t have adequate health care, live with undiagnosed health conditions – we’re fighting demons every day,” she continued. “In some cases, there are those who only meant to ‘experiment’ with opioids one time but because of their biological makeup, they were more susceptible to addicted and quickly got hooked.”
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