Fentanyl: The New Public Health Crisis

Fentanyl is the leading drug attributed to overdose deaths in Columbus due to its high potency and common occurrence in recreational street drugs. What The Lantern has found is that fentanyl related overdose deaths affect every Columbus community, including the University District.

Helping one person with addiction helps the entire community of loved ones connected to them.  

That’s what Adam Ball, a Columbus Division of Police officer who lost his father to addiction, said. Ball said if his father, who he declined to name, received treatment for his addiction, it would have impacted everyone close to him, especially himself. 

“When I look at the end of the year, and it’s like, ‘Oh, we engaged with over such and such thousands, but we only got 400-500 into treatment, and then I think in my head, ‘Times that by 60, think about the thousands of lives we changed because we got one person into treatment,’ and it kind of makes you rethink your approach to it,” Ball said.

As an officer on a team dedicated to responding to addiction and drug-related emergencies, Ball said he takes a similar approach when fighting against overdose deaths in Columbus communities, including the University District. 

Recreational street drugs favored by college students have always been a concern, but recently it’s grown to be a public health crisis because they are now often laced with a deadly substance: fentanyl.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the Centers for Disease and Control. It is often added to other drugs because it makes drugs cheaper, more powerful, more addictive.

According to the CDC, there were 5,204 overdose deaths in Ohio in 2020 out of a total 91,799 nationwide — the third most of any state — and about 5.7 percent of the total overdose deaths. 

According to the Columbus Franklin County Addiction plan, 803 of the total 5,204 overdose deaths were in Franklin County. This number decreased to 707 in 2022.

Over the past three months, The Lantern spoke with public health officials, law enforcement, Ohio State officials and students to understand the dangers of illicit drug use. These drugs include — but are not limited to — Adderall, cocaine, crack and opiates. 

Fentanyl was listed as the key cause of the overdose deaths of two Ohio State students — Jessica Lopez and Tiffany Iler — in May 2022. 

Andrea Boxill, Columbus Public Health administrator for addiction services, said fentanyl is what has really increased overdose deaths across the state and nation as a whole.

Alison Miller, program manager of the Opioid Use Disorder Program at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, said the center sees accidental overdoses frequently in the University District from drugs patients didn’t know were laced with fentanyl.

Ball emphasized that drugs are an issue everywhere, including the University District.

“It’s not a very popular view from the university, that drugs exist and are around, but they do,” Ball said. “They exist in every single neighborhood. No one’s immune to it.”

Lt. Charles Waldenga, an officer within Columbus Police’s mental health/addiction services section, said drug overdoses are a public health issue affecting the quality of life for everyone in the city.

“What it’s gonna see, as we dive into this more, opioids and overdoses and even unintentional ones from other things related, it’s become a problem,” Waldenga said. 

Ohio is the seventh-most populated state, but experienced a disproportionate amount of overdose deaths in 2020 when compared to its population size. 

According to the CDC, the overdose death count in Ohio decreased to 4,999 in 2022, compared to 5,420 in 2021 — a 7.77 percent decrease in overdose deaths.

According to 2020 data from the Ohio Department of Health on drug overdoses, fentanyl accounted for eight out of every 10 overdose deaths in Ohio.

“That person that was taking that cocaine, probably did not realize that they were also ingesting a lethal dose of fentanyl,” Waldenga said.

“That person that was taking that cocaine, probably did not realize that they were also ingesting a lethal dose of fentanyl, so that’s been a big thing,” Waldenga said.

Waldenga and Ball are members of the Rapid Response Emergency and Addiction Team, which actively uses prevention and harm reduction methods such as the distribution of fentanyl test strips, education on how to properly administer Narcan to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose and the supply of Narcan to the majority of Columbus police officers. 

In Franklin County, Boxill said the number of overdose-related deaths are slightly decreasing.

Columbus Fire Captain and RREACT team co-founder Matt Parrish said the team has contributed to the decline through its outreach, distribution of Narcan, CPR training and more.

“Those numbers are really bad for 2020, but the good thing is we’ve seen after the pandemic kind of slowed, the pandemic really exacerbated things, we’ve seen the fatal overdoses start to decline significantly,” Parrish said. 

Just how many Ohio State students are included among overdose statistics, fatal and non-fatal, is not clear.

Ball said whether they have had individuals bring in their drugs or they took home fentanyl test strips to test their drugs, the result was always the same.

“Every single time we’ve seen somebody test their dope, it’s been positive for fentanyl, every single time,” Ball said.

“Every single time we’ve seen somebody test their dope, it’s been positive for fentanyl, every single time,” Ball said.

Students

Testing on an Adderall pill came back positive for meth in Cabo San Lucas

Wally Skalij | Los Angeles Times via TNS

“It’s pretty dangerous out there, you’re usually not getting what you think you’re getting,” Toliver said.

Boxill said the most common substances college students use, following alcohol and marijuana, are opioids, stimulants and sedatives.

Boxill said drug use should not be stigmatized nor viewed as a moral failing.

“If I’m ashamed of myself, because the world has made me feel ashamed, how likely am I to come to you for help?” Boxill said.

Boxill said for each population, the categorization of a “recreational” drug can be different and college students could be using stimulants recreationally or as downers. 

“The complication comes in when you have what’s called polysubstance use, you use more than one, and you start to think all your stuff is safe, but the combination of those drugs is what can lead to overdose,” Boxill said.

SOAR is an app created by Ohio State students which allows any student to anonymously report and receive notifications regarding drugs sold and laced with fentanyl.

Boxill said every student at Ohio State should be enrolled in “SOAR,” especially after the May 2022 overdoses, to inform others on the risks of drug use.

“When people think of that incident last year, it wasn’t just two people who overdosed, it was two people who died, and we need to be clear, and that wasn’t the first time we had people in the campus area overdose and die,” Boxill said. 

Ohio State

Ahmed Hosni, assistant director who oversees the alcohol and drug initiatives at the Student Wellness Center, said he works closely with staff to provide direct support to students who focus on prevention, recovery support and interventions. 

Hosni said he works with other leadership across campus on alcohol and drug strategies along with working with community and campus partners to understand the needs of university students.

Dr. Shawnté Elbert, associate vice president for health and well-being, and Melissa M.  Shivers, senior vice president for Student Life, along with other leaders across campus provide education for all incoming students to help guide them to make smart decisions in terms of substance use, Hosni said.

Hosni said they also produce presentations as a means of outreach, hold interventions for students showing signs of concerning substance abuse behaviors, hold coaching programs such as Beyond Your Buzz and maintain the Collegiate Recovery Program.

Hosni said the Student Wellness Center also uses harm reduction approaches by partnering with Student Health Services and the Wexner Medical Center to distribute Narcan and fentanyl test strips through their outreach approaches, tabling and presentations.

“The most important decision they could make is to not use at all, but we know that’s not the reality for human beings,” Hosni said.

Taylor Justice, vice president of Buckeyes for Harm Reduction, said the organization works to reduce the stigma surrounding substance abuse while taking harm reduction approaches through the distribution of clean needles, Narcan and fentanyl test strips.

“We like to meet people where they are. We don’t tell the people, ‘Stop doing drugs because they’re bad,’” Justice said. 

Buckeyes for Harm Reduction executive board

Courtesy of Andrea Hefferan

Athena Markoswki | Managing Editor of Design

Parrish said the RREACT team has done work to increase its outreach, especially to the Black community, as this demographic is starting to suffer from opioids more now than ever before. 

Parrish said the team worked a lot with New Birth Christian Ministries located on Refugee Road to educate them about illegal drug use and the dangers that come with it. 

“You think you’re getting cocaine but it’s probably got fentanyl, and they had no idea,” Parrish said. 

Parrish said they have learned to understand and adopt the mindset that they have the same risk of addiction as anyone else.

“I talked early on with our staff that, our jobs are physical, you get injured a lot, you have potential for injury, what do they prescribe you when you’re injured? Pain pills,” Parrish said. “We’ve had a lot of members get hooked on pain pills that way, from their job-related injury.”

Parrish said there is a stigma behind public safety professionals, but they are a part of the community too and are susceptible to the same life pressures as everyone else.

“It’s, just, we put on this protection of armor here for one day and when your uniform is on, you’re a police officer, you’re a firefighter, and then you go home and you’re just a regular person, dealing with all of the stuff everybody else does,” Parrish said. 

Actions Taken to Help

Waldenga said some of the actions the RREACT team has taken to help individuals struggling with drug use include handing out groceries and holding community events. Waldenga said the RREACT team also provides financial resources to families whose loved one is receiving treatment but struggle because that family member was the main source of income.

Waldenga said the RREACT team also holds substance-free alumni events for individuals who have completed treatment and are now living a sober lifestyle.

“If we fix everything now but it happens again and again and again, then we’re just going to keep being in that swirl,” Parrish said. “It’s really kind of a holistic approach when looking at the prevention piece, the response piece, linking people with the right resources and then assisting them through recovery.” 

Ball said the RREACT team is now training first responders to recognize when individuals are more susceptible to drug use based on adverse circumstances. She said she feels their approach failed in the prevention aspect and that it must extend past the K-12 age group.

“What we’re finding in the overdose data is, we’re talking about people, when I say opiate naive, who do not understand the severity and the probability — the likelihood of death,” Boxill said.

Boxill described primary prevention as going to Columbus City Schools to educate students on the dangers of drug use and the preventative measures they can take. Secondary prevention consists of community town halls and tertiary prevention reduces harm and educates individuals on what to do in the occurrence of an overdose.

“We’re spending a great deal of time, as we should, working on prevention with young people, but the reality is secondary and tertiary prevention is what we need to provide throughout the community,” Boxill said. 

Boxill said Columbus Public Health is partnered with the “Brave” app, where app users are partnered with a random individual who does not know them. The individual will then sit with “Brave” users on the phone as they use and call for medical assistance — not police assistance — if an overdose were to occur. 

“Just because a person wants to get high, doesn’t mean they want to die,” Boxill said.

Words by Arianna Smith

Artwork by Abby Fricke

Web Design by Christian Harsa