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Hope Center on Main Street in Luzerne opens doors to residents and offers just that - hope

Budget items targeted for cuts by new Wilkes-Barre mayor made money for the city last year

<p>A new report shows hospitalizations from painkillers and heroin overdoses have soared since 2000 in northeast Pennsylvania, yet those who work with addicts in the area suspect the report numbers may substantially underestimate the scope of the problem.</p><p>&#8220;The use of heroin and opiates is just getting worse,&#8221; CHOICES Clinical Services Director Gary Snipes warned after reviewing a new brief from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. &#8220;The numbers are coming at us in different ways, and we&#8217;re so far behind the eight ball, we can&#8217;t handle it.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;We have all been kind of blind-sided by the way this epidemic has shaped up,&#8221; conceded Dr. Margaret Jarvis, medical director at Geisinger&#8217;s Marworth Addiction and Chemical Dependency Treatment Center in Waverly. &#8220;We&#8217;ve been left flat-footed in that the customary treatments aren&#8217;t effective and we&#8217;re scrambling to find something that works.&#8221;</p><p>The &#8220;research brief&#8221; from PH4C, an independent state agency, does not give hospital-by-hospital data commonly found in other reports from the agency, but it does provide state and regional numbers on hospitalization due to overdoses from 2000 to 2014. The figures form a grim landscape.</p><p>State-wide, hospitalizations from pain medicine overdoses soared by 204 percent, while heroin overdoses jumped by 145 percent.</p><p>Locally, in the nine-county Northeastern region that includes Luzerne, Lackawanna and Wyoming counties, the increases were 184 percent for painkillers and 34 percent for heroin.</p><p>Both Jarvis and Snipes found the heroin number suspect. Snipes noted &#8220;heroin is the bigger thing&#8221; at CHOICES at First Hospital in Kingston, operated by Commonwealth Health.</p><p>One possible reason the heroin overdose numbers in the report may seem low, he added, could be that people coming in for heroin addiction aren&#8217;t always coming in due to overdoses.</p><p>Jarvis also suspected the rate of heroin use may have jumped so high prior to the dates of the study that the growth <em>during</em> the study period looked small by comparison.</p><p>Jarvis and Snipes also agreed a new factor in the drug world is likely skewing overdose numbers: Growing availability of naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan, which can quickly counteract the life-threatening facets of opioid overdoses, primarily slowed heart and breathing rates.</p><p>Because it has proven so safe and effective at preventing overdose deaths, the legal availability of naloxone expanded quickly to include not only emergency responders but police and even family members of known addicts.</p><p>Which means addicts may have an overdose, get treated by emergency responders, police or family members, and opt against admission even though it is recommended.</p><p>&#8220;When we talk to first responders, they joke that the addicts &#8216;come out swinging&#8217;,&#8221; Snipes said. &#8220;They come out of their stupor and are jumping. They aren&#8217;t going to go into rehab. They are going to re-use.&#8221;</p><p>In fact, he speculated, the availability of naloxone could prompt addicts to become more reckless, believing they can take heavier doses of a preferred drug precisely because a friend is nearby with the antidote.</p><p>That kind of thinking can be deadly for a simple reason, Jarvis said &#8212; the naloxone lasts about 90 minutes, while heroin can last for three to six hours. A person may revive, only to start slipping into another fatal state, requiring a second and even third shot of naloxone &#8212; a big reason overdose victims should head for an emergency room even if the counter-drug was handy.</p><p>Both said the data is clear: Most people start opioid abuse with pain killers, switching to heroin when it gets too difficult and expensive to keep acquiring prescription meds. Jarvis suggested the higher spike regionally in painkiller overdoses may be a &#8220;statistical blip&#8221; created by the timing of the years studied, with more people in the painkiller phase of addiction at the time.</p><p>Jarvis conceded blame for the epidemic falls partly on the shoulders of health care providers, who started treating pain as another vital sign about a decade ago, being quicker to give out opiates to manage legitimate pain. It was compounded when heroin became stronger and cheaper.</p><p>There is no quick fix. Both Jarvis and Snipes said changes in state law designed to make it easier for pharmacies and doctors to track a patient&#8217;s prescription history &#8212; a law passed but has not yet been implemented &#8212; could help. Better education for doctors and patients alike may also slow the epidemic.</p><p>Snipes said he never agreed with giving naloxone out so freely. The idea was to save lives and, used properly, it can. But, he noted, a recent study suggests overdose deaths have actually increased with the proliferation of naloxone availability.</p><p>Greater money for research and expansion of treatment centers and options would also make sense, both agreed.</p><p>Because the opioid addicts don&#8217;t respond to the more traditional treatments used for alcoholics or those addicted to other types of drugs like cocaine, Jarvis said rehab centers are forced to try new methods without the usual vetting process designed to assure what they are doing works.</p><p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t have time for that,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Too many people are dying.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

New report shows statewide drug overdose epidemic, yet may understate regional problem