ADAMH director speaks at Betterment

Sarah Ein­se­len — Staff

Galion Area Bet­ter­ment Com­mis­sion mem­bers gather in the Galion Com­mu­nity Hos­pi­tal small din­ing room, adja­cent to the cafe­te­ria, for its monthly meet­ing Feb. 6.

By Sarah Einselen

Inquirer Reporter

Jody Demo-Hodgins, direc­tor of the Crawford-Marion Board of Alco­hol, Drug Addic­tion and Men­tal Health Ser­vices, spoke to the Galion Area Bet­ter­ment Com­mis­sion about opi­ates preva­lence in the county at the commission’s reg­u­lar meet­ing Feb. 6.

“Almost every time I speak to a group in Mar­ion County or in Craw­ford County they think we are the only area in the state with an opi­ates prob­lem,” Demo-Hodgins began. How­ever, that’s not the case—to judge by increas­ing enroll­ment in opi­ates treat­ment pro­grams that help addicts detox, the prob­lem is all over the state, she said.

There’s no rank­ing, either, to deter­mine where the prob­lem is worst. The rank that is com­monly cited is the mea­sure of unin­tended deaths due to drug poi­son­ing, which includes pre­scrip­tion drugs, heroin and mar­i­juana among other things. In 2009, Craw­ford County was fifth in the state for these unin­tended deaths, which don’t count sui­cides by drug over­doses. That year, nine drug deaths occurred in the county.

“We think the num­ber for the whole of Craw­ford County was closer to six last year,” said Demo-Hodgins. While opi­ates and heroin are a prob­lem in the county, she said, Galion and Craw­ford County are not the worst in the state.

Demo-Hodgins then sum­ma­rized sev­eral fig­ures that chron­i­cled the rise of the area’s opi­ates prob­lem. Heroin has been around longer than pre­scrip­tion drug abuse, she said. Deaths due to opi­ates, as listed on death cer­tifi­cates, increased 300 per­cent over the last decade, and prop­erty crime has risen. To com­pli­cate mat­ters, the Ohio Depart­ment of Alco­hol and Drug Addic­tion Ser­vices believes drug deaths are under­re­ported, Demo-Hodgins said, because peo­ple are uncom­fort­able with hav­ing that listed on the death certificate.

No sta­tis­tics have been gath­ered on drug abuse in Craw­ford County. The county’s Opi­ates Task Force, headed by Demo-Hodgins, wants to sur­vey eighth graders and sopho­mores or juniors in high school reg­u­larly to gather that data.

“We do know that teenagers have access to a whole lot more things than I did when I was younger or maybe you did when you were younger,” said Demo-Hodgins.

And some­times teens self-medicate for other prob­lems they have, like depression.

In Craw­ford County, Demo-Hodgins said, “we have a higher rate of depres­sion or ADHD in young peo­ple than you’d see nation­ally.” Clin­i­cal diag­noses of psy­chosis are more com­mon, too.

Most peo­ple that Demo-Hodgins has worked with were led into heroin or pre­scrip­tion drug abuse through other chan­nels in their teens, she said. At 14 or 15 years old, teens would start abus­ing alco­hol or mar­i­juana, she said, then “even­tu­ally stum­bled on opiate-based medications.”

Peo­ple switch to heroin after becom­ing addicted to opiate-based pre­scrip­tion drugs because “heroin is cheap,” Demo-Hodgins said. It’s more eco­nom­i­cal for an addict to sell the pre­scrip­tion drugs and buy heroin instead. How­ever, heroin is get­ting more expen­sive since the pill mills have been shut down and more peo­ple are turn­ing to it from the pre­scrip­tion medications.

Detox­ing can take place at home as well as at an inpa­tient treat­ment cen­ter, said Demo-Hodgins, but it’s very painful and usu­ally involves severe flu-like symp­toms, includ­ing aches, vom­it­ing and diar­rhea. Sub­ox­one, a non-euphoric, non-addictive sub­sti­tute for opi­ates, can be used dur­ing detox under doctor’s orders, but cur­rently no Craw­ford County doc­tors can pre­scribe it.

And a recov­er­ing addict often relapses sev­eral times. “If we have a hun­dred peo­ple present for treat­ment, 10 of them will be suc­cess­ful,” said Demo-Hodgins. That’s because relapse is part of recov­ery, she said. “With every relapse they have, they take some tools with them to use the next time.”

The Galion Area Bet­ter­ment Com­mis­sion will hold its next reg­u­lar meet­ing at noon on Mon­day, March 5, in the Galion Com­mu­nity Hos­pi­tal small din­ing room.

Posted by Sarah Einselen on Feb 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.