MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — Following a months’ long downward trend of overdose deaths in the Eastern Panhandle, Berkeley County Recovery Resources reports the numbers were ticking upward last month.
Quick Response Team member Kaitlyn Himes blames synthetic opioids. “The fentanyl, we know it’s here. The xylazine, we know it’s here. The other two are confirmed too. So, the medetomidine and the nidazine are essentially the same thing as fentanyl and xylazine, but more potent. So, the nitazine being that it’s the twin, if you want to call it that, to fentanyl, best case scenario is ten times more potent, worst-case scenario, 40 times more potent.”
“It’s not just in, you know, the opioid heroin supply. It’s in cocaine, it’s in methamphetamine,” said Recovery Resources Coordinator Stephanie Stout.
Himes said her Quick Response Team has seen evidence of synthetics showing up in drugs like marijuana.
“We’ve even had a report on the quick response team of a 16-year-old girl who was smoking marijuana and didn’t know it had fentanyl in it and she passed.”
“On the quick response team, we’ve seen a little bit of an increase in overdose deaths just in the month of September,” Himes said. Despite a downward trend over previous months, “Just in the month of September, we started the month off with this. We had three confirmed deaths right in the beginning.”
Groups across the Panhandle and the state participated in Save A Life Day. Stout says the event, rescheduled to October 2nd, was a success.
“We did have to reschedule but still had so much success with that. Over the Eastern Panhandle. We had 4,624 doses of Narcan distributed,” Stout said.
Test strips for a number of drugs are available for free, according to Stout.
“We have a Narcan take away box, and we actually keep the test strips. We have some boxes that are in there with the Narcan and then we have some on top. It’s a no questions asked thing. If they want to come in, they can take what they need and they can leave. They don’t have to talk to us.”
Stout and Himes say with each interaction they are able to make at either a Save a Life Day event or through the Quick Response Team following an overdose, they attempt to make users aware of resources that could save their lives and get them out of addiction.
Panhandle News Network reporter Luke Wiggs contributed to this story.