David Yaffe-Bellany Photo
Sneaker left by car where two victims were found outside Bowen Field.
New Haven and four other Connecticut cities had more than 20 opioid overdose deaths in 2015, according to a comprehensive report on the state’s opioid epidemic released in town Thursday that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said he hopes will be used as a “blueprint’’ for future drug-fighting legislation.
Hartford, with 48 overdose deaths, had the most in 2015. New Haven had 33 deaths last year.
New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport, Waterbury and New Britain were the five cities that totaled more than 20 overdose deaths. The deaths in these five cities accounted for close to 25 percent off all the fatal events in the entire state in 2015.
Among the report’s findings was that, overall in 2015, there were 697 opioid-involved deaths in the state of Connecticut, 639 of which were Connecticut residents.
And 2016 is even worse. New Haven knows that all too well.
Back in July of this year 16 New Haveners overdosed in six hours from a bad batch of drugs. Two of them died.
At a recent session on drug abuse at Kennedy High School in Waterbury, Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Dayton told the audience Connecticut is tracking a record 888 overdose deaths for the entire 2016 calendar year.
The average age of those who died from overdoses was in 2015 was 42; 74 percent were male, 83 percent were white; 11 percent Hispanic, 5 percent African-American.
A list of the 40 towns and cities with the highest number of overdose deaths in Connecticut’s 169 towns in 2015 is included in the report by the Connecticut Opioid Response (CORE) initiative, a group created in partnership with the office of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, the Yale School of Medicine, and Connecticut’s insurance carriers.
Other cities and towns that had a high number of overdose deaths in 2015 included Bristol, with 18; New London, with 16; Manchester, with 16; Meriden, with 15; West Haven, with 14; Middletown, with 14; Enfield, with 14; Danbury, with 13; Torrington, with 12; Stratford, with 10, Norwich, with 10; Milford, with 9; Hamden, with 8, East Haven, with 8; and Branford, Wallingford, Shelton, Seymour, and Ansonia – all of which had 5.
Yale hosted a press conference Thursday on the report’s findings, at a press conference, with Malloy in attendance, at the Yale School of Medicine.
Malloy at Thursday’s announcement.
Malloy said the report “gives us a better road map that we’ve had before to fight the epidemic of opioid misuse.’’
“It’s impacting all of us,’’ said the governor. “Every city, every town is struggling with the over prescription of opioids and cheap heroin.’’
In the report, CORE explains its initiative as: “A mechanism to articulate data-driven and evidence-based medical, public health, and policy strategy initiatives related to opioid use disorder, reducing overdose events and a means for achieving those initiatives.’’
The report recommends six strategies to combat the opioid epidemic:
• Increase access to high-quality treatment with methadone and buprenorphine;
• Reduce overdose risk, especially among those individuals at highest risk;
• Increase adherence to opioid prescribing guidelines among providers, especially those providing prescriptions associated with an increased risk of overdose and death;
• Increase access to and track use of naloxone;
• Increase data sharing across relevant agencies and organizations to monitor and facilitate responses, including rapid responses to outbreaks of overdoses and other opioid-related (e.g. HIV or HCV) events;
• Increase community understanding of the scale of opioid use disorder, the nature of the disorder, and the most effective and evidence-based responses to promote treatment uptake and decrease stigma.
Malloy praised the General Assembly, members of whom were in attendance at Thursday’s press conference, for in its most recent session passing legislation placing a seven-day cap on opioid prescriptions in an effort to reign in what many called the “over-prescribing” of painkillers.
There is an exception clause included in the bill for those receiving long-term prescriptions from their doctors allowing them to exceed the seven-day cap.
The legislation also requires first responders to be trained in the use of Narcan and to carry and dispense it. The drug is injected into patients to counter the effects of opioid and heroin overdoses.
“We’ve tried to be in the forefront; we’ve made some progress,’’ said Malloy.
Dr. David Fiellin, professor of medicine in the Institute for Social and Policy Studies and of Public Health at the Yale School of Medicine, was one of the authors of the CORE report.
He said it is hope that “it helps the stakeholders focus their strategies. It should help us focus our efforts on those who are at highest risk.’’
Malloy, noting that dollars are tough to come by while the state is in the midst of a budget crisis, said the CORE report “will be a crucial tool to maintain, and hopefully find additional funding to fight this crisis.’’