Record year for heroin overdoses in Lynn

LYNN – Heroin overdoses killed 22 people in Lynn in 2012 – double and in some cases even triple the number of fatalities in previous years – and police and addiction treatment workers said the deadly trend shows no signs of slackening in 2013.Two men in their 50s and a 47-year-old woman died from “suspected heroin overdoses,” according to Police Department statistics, in January, and two men in their 40s died in March from overdoses.”These are only the ones we know about,” said Police Chief Kevin Coppinger.Overdoses killed 26 people in 2009, 2010 and 2011, according to police statistics, and Coppinger said medical privacy laws and reluctance by addicts or people who know them to report overdoses prompts police and addiction workers to speculate that official statistics underestimate local overdoses and overdose deaths.”This could be half the number that actually occurred,” said Project Cope program development director Wendy Kent.Heroin kills its users by slowing breathing to the point where the lungs, then the heart and brain, stop functioning.”The brain tells the body to stop breathing,” Kent said.An inhalant drug called Narcan reverses heroin’s hold on a drug user almost instantaneously, but Kent said Narcan only counteracts heroin – it won’t work on the combination of heroin and other drugs that Kent and Healthy Streets Program Director Mary Wheeler said are being used by drug addicts.”The problem is very frustrating, but we don’t have a localized problem, we have a statewide one,” Wheeler said.Located at 280 Union St., Healthy Streets is affiliated with Lahey Behavioral Health, and Wheeler and her co-workers provide users of heroin and other opioids, including some painkillers, with treatment referrals, hepatitis testing and Narcan.”We see about 20 new injection drug users a month,” Wheeler said.Like Kent, Wheeler said a strict state prescription monitoring program, coupled with a drop in illegally-sold prescription drugs, could mean drug addicts who cannot find pills switched to heroin.Kent said injection drug use is also on the rise, and she estimated half the documented overdose deaths can be blamed on deadly drug cocktails where users combine heroin with another drug.Wheeler said fewer beds available in drug detoxification centers could explain why more drug addicts are on the street. She received some welcome news recently when Health Streets learned the detox center in Tewksbury is reopening with 32 beds.Kent said another bright spot on the addiction landscape is the state’s decision, beginning in July, to spend money on regional efforts to combat drug use, including joint efforts by Lynn, Peabody and Salem.Lynn police are also redoubling drug crackdowns with five officers assisting the three Lynn officers and state troopers assigned to the Drug Task Force.”We’re in the middle of a big push to get dealers,” Coppinger said.Coppinger, Kent and Wheeler said there is no single solution for reducing the number of addicts and addiction deaths. Wheeler wages an addict-by-addict battle to steer drug users to detox, remind them not to use drugs alone and teach them to know overdose warning signs.Healthy Streets monitors the publicly available online police call log to get addresses where overdoses occurred. Cards sent to those addresses include information on how to recognize overdose signs and provide help to someone overdosing.”The problem is the problem is outstripping the solution,” she said.Kent and Coppinger stressed the importance of connecting marijuana and alcohol use to prescription drug use that often begins with youths sampling painkillers left in household medicine cabinets.Social perceptions of drug use and drug users need to be altered, they said, for real victories to be scored in the war on drugs”People don’t want to talk about it. The stigma is there – even the medical community does not like to deal with this,” Kent said.Coppinger agreed.”If there had been 22 homicides last year? Well, 22 overdose deaths,