Growing Heroin Problem in MD
The heroin epidemic in Maryland is getting worse. The numbers from 2014 show 887 people died from heroin and opioid related overdoses. That’s a 25% increase from the year before.
The Heroin and Opioid Emergency Task Force was started in February by Governor Larry Hogan in an effort to collect information from folks such as drug treatment advisors, hospital staff, nurses, and doctors, in hopes of coming up with concrete practical solutions.
Dr. Michael Finegan is on the Heroin and Opioid Emergency Task Force and he tells 47 ABC, “Were going to attack this aggressively. We’re going to save lives.”
Dr. Finegan also says the issue is very much present here on the Eastern Shore.
He tells 47 ABC, “We are overwhelmed particularly in Wicomico county. Very few people in Wicomico County, very few people in Somerset and Worcester County doesn’t know somebody that has died from a heroin overdose.”
But the taskforce doesn’t just want to hear from people in the medical community, they want to hear from you, too.
Dr. Finegan tells 47 ABC, “Paint that picture for us show us that picture that’s what were listening for.”
Heroin and opioids are illicit street drugs but the addiction doesn’t start on a street corner, it begins in the home. In the medicine cabinet to be exact. Medical experts say folks who are addicted to prescription painkillers turn to heroin as the cheaper solution and it appears doctors are reacting.
Dr. Finegan tells 47 ABC, “There has been a radical change in the medical community in terms of being much more thoughtful based on education and experience of limiting the prescribing of pain medications.”
The average age of users is 25 to 34 years old but the fastest growing group? 18 to 23.
Dr. Finegan tells 47 ABC, “We need grandmothers going up to the dealer on the street corner selling and saying what are you doing, your mom lives four doors down. We need those mothers and fathers those community leaders to stand up.”
The Heroin and Opioid Emergency Task Force is set to have another meeting on the Eastern Shore at Saint Francis De Sales Parish in Salisbury on June 10th.
