Region Leads State In Opioid Overdose Deaths

This fall, President Trump directed acting Health Secretary Eric Hargan to declare opioid abuse a public health emergency. The epidemic has taken hold all over the country, reaching across age, gender, and socio-economic lines — and, as anyone who reads the headlines is familiar, right here into what many perceive as our northern Michigan paradise.

While there’s no way to pinpoint the number of opioid abusers in the region, Benzie County led the state in its population’s proportion of opioid overdose deaths — 2.9 deaths per 10,000 residents — in 2015 (the last year the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services made data available). Antrim and Crawford counties weren’t far behind with 2.2 deaths per 10,000 people respectively.

As Lynda Wheatley writes in this week's Northern Express - sister publication of The Ticker - Grand Traverse County had nine opioid-related overdose deaths, or one in every 10,000 residents. In 2016, according to Capt. Chris Clark, the Grand Traverse County Sheriff's Office documented 14 fatal overdoses (including those due to alcohol and non-opioid drugs). In 2017, that number dropped to eight.

Does credit for the slight improvement go to naloxone, the overdose reversal drug that the Grand Traverse County Sheriff's Office began supplying its officers in 2016, of which 14 applications have been used so far? Is it an effect of the Sheriff’s Department Interdiction Team, a specially trained unit that began operations in January 2016 to work closely with the Traverse Narcotics Team (TNT) and department detective bureau to target criminal activity related to drugs? Better prevention and education efforts in schools? Or is it simply one slightly better year amidst an increasingly growing problem?

A group of people who have different roles in — and vantage points on — the opioid situation in the Grand Traverse community spoke with Wheatley for a roundtable on the issue, each offering his or her unique view on the whats and whys of the situation. Those interviewed included Tom Flitton, a sergeant with Grand Traverse Sheriff’s Office and supervisor of the department’s interdiction team; Lynn Hertler, a Grand Traverse resident who lost her son, Michael, to an opioid overdose in September 2017; Dr. Rob Smith, EMS med director for NW Regional Medical Control Authority, an ER physician at Munson Medical Center, a former paramedic and firefighter, and former SWAT doctor with Wayne County Sheriff’s Department; Christopher Hindbaugh, chief executive officer of Addiction Treatment Center in Traverse City; and Michigan State Police Lt. Kip Belcher, task force section commander for the 7th district, overseer of three drug taskforce teams in 19 Michigan counties.

The conversation brought an agreement on one central issue: We don’t have an opioid situation Up North. We have a crisis. "Right now, it’s an epidemic," says Smith. "It is a public health concern. Has it gotten a lot worse? It’s gotten a lot worse as far as with younger people. People have always overdosed on drugs, but now you have kids using. When you see a person addicted, their entire life centers around using the drug." Adds Hindbaugh: "This is the only disease that we don’t treat people until they get to the highest levels of acuity, and it’s often too late by that point because they’re entering other systems at that point, legal or otherwise."

Read more about the region's opioid crisis and interviews with all of the roundtable experts in this week's Northern Express cover story, "Opioids Up North." The Northern Express is available online, or pick up a copy at one of nearly 700 spots in 14 counties across northern Michigan.