Huntington - After an unprecedented year of drug overdoses, a group of city and county officials in Cabell County joined West Virginia's junior senator Friday to talk about the local solutions already being put to the test in the region, and the legislative support still needed to curb addiction and prevent more deaths.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., flanked by city officials, law enforcement and medical professionals, led a round table discussion in Huntington on Friday that focused on the local and national approach to combating the drug epidemic in West Virginia, and particularly in Cabell County, which has been hit hard by the heroin epidemic sweeping the state.
In 2015, Cabell saw a record 944 overdoses - an average of roughly two and a half overdoses every day, and more than triple the 2014 count of 272 overdoses. About 70 of those overdoses resulted in death, and the county averaged one overdose death roughly every five days, according to the Mayor's Office of Drug Control Policy.
Scott Lemley, the criminal intelligence analyst for the Huntington Police Department, said that overdose demographics tended to reflect the make up of the county's general population in 2015, but that more men than women died as a result of overdoses. He said overdose victims ranged in age and socioeconomic background - the median age for overdose patients in 2015 was 37, the youngest was 12 and the oldest 78.
"(Overdoses) have covered a broad range of ages and socioeconomic groups," Lemley said. "In terms of race, it kind of follows the population - it's about eight to 10 percent African American; the rest have been Caucasian."
West Virginia has the highest overdose death rate in the nation with 33.5 deaths per every 100,000 people, but Cabell's 2015 total of 70 was more than double the state rate. The problem is even more prevalent in the city of Huntington, which saw 121 overdose deaths last year.
Huntington Mayor Steve Williams said the round table was organized to give stakeholders a chance to meet with Capito and share their unique approaches and concerns in tackling opioid addiction.
"We wanted the senator to be aware of everyone who is involved with the process; we have been communicating so much with her staff, about the harm reduction program, about the challenges we're facing from a law enforcement standpoint, and we felt it would be best to let the senator hear from everybody and from every aspect of the community," Williams said.
Williams praised Capito for her work in securing federal grant funding for the region to combat the problem, but added that he believed there is still more Congress can do to provide support for what has become a bipartisan, national problem. Williams pointed to the recently passed budget bill, which he said included legislation that would transfer seizures made during drug busts into to federal control, potentially cutting into a source of revenue that helps municipalities fund local law enforcement.
"When something like that happens, it's going to have a direct effect on partnership on federal cases," he said. "In essence, more state charges will occur, and it will interfere with the partnerships the (Drug Enforcement Administration) and local law enforcement, because...when there's a big drug bust, and cash and drugs are seized, the resources from those are distributed, it helps local law enforcement to function so that their operations are not just dependent on local tax dollars.
"That's awfully short sighted, and that's what we're trying to communicate to our senators and representatives."
The round table highlighted several programs within the county created to combat the addiction epidemic, including the Cabell-Huntington Health Department's harm reduction program, which includes a needle exchange, counseling services, medical testing and education. Dr. Michael Kilkenny, the health department's health officer, said the program has had an enormous response - more than 650 addicts have visited the program since its launch.
"We saw a presentation from the director of the syringe exchange in the city of Pittsburgh, and they see 650 clients in a year," Kilkenny said. "The extent of our problem, the extent of our challenge, is also the extent of our opportunity...the goal of this whole program is to recover our citizens, our brothers and sisters who are suffering with this disease.
"We want them back...as citizens alongside us."
Kilkenny said the health department is considering expanding its harm reduction program to other locations, as well as exploring a program that could help prevent another problem created by addiction.
Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome affected 275 infants born in Huntington in 2015, with many more who went undetected, said Rebecca Crowder, the executive director of Lily's Place in Huntington, the state's first treatment center for infants born addicted to drugs.
The city is also home to the state's largest residential treatment facility for men, Recovery Point of Huntington, which has expanded its peer-to-peer Recovery model to Bluefield, and will soon open a location for women on Charleston's West Side.
Law enforcement is working toward expanding its own naloxone program. Naloxone, an opioid antagonist used to treat overdoses, cannot be abused, said Dr. Kevin Yingling, dean of the Marshall University School of Pharmacy, who added that the drug needs to become more widely available to the public.
The county has also established a successful drug court program - according to Cabell County Family Court Judge Patricia Keller, more than 80 percent of the county's drug court graduates have remained sober after the program. The county recently launced the Women's Empowerment and Addiction Recovery (WEAR) program, a drug court program that addresses the needs of drug-addicted prostitutes.
According to Capito, the addiction issue is one that has found support in a deeply partisan Congress. The senator has partnered with multiple Democrats on legislation geared toward curbing addiction, she said, including a recent bill she joined on with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that would allow patients to request that their prescriptions only be partially filled.
"We live in a land of politics sometimes - I live in it all the time - and it can get very frustrating," she said. "We're going to lose a whole generation here if we don't acknowledge this around the state and around the country. That, to me, is said - people my age are cycling out of the workforce, and this generation of drug issues is hitting that cross section of workers who are coming up to replace them."
Reach Lydia Nuzum at lydia.nuzum@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5189 or follow @lydianuzum on Twitter.