Local hospitals report drug overdoses treated at their facilities have decreased or leveled off, but county coroners and treatment representatives believe drugs are as prevalent and damaging as ever.

Southeast Hospital said overdoses decreased from 66 patients in 2015 to 49 in 2016. The hospital’s numbers include only illegal drugs and not prescription painkillers.

“While we do see some intentional prescription opioid (narcotic) drug misuse, the most frequent type of prescription-drug overdose that we see is with medications for depression, anxiety and other behavioral-health issues,” Linda Brown, Southeast Hospital director of emergency services, wrote in an email.

“Overdose of non-prescription illegal drugs is also an issue in this area, with the primary drug of choice being methamphetamine followed by heroin,” Brown wrote.

“There are also accidental overdoses in children and the elderly where medications may not be stored properly or secured or with individuals who may have forgotten whether or not they took their medications.”

Perry County Memorial Hospital went from 31 overdoses in 2015, including prescription and illegal drugs, to 28 in 2016.

“We’re actually kind of proud of that,” Perry County Memorial Hospital interim ER manager Lisa Kight said of the decrease. “I definitely think there’s more awareness, especially for prescription drugs. ... It’s a battle. We’re all in it together.”

Saint Francis Medical Center went from 51 overdoses on illegal and prescription drugs in 2015 to 54 overdoses in 2016.

That increase pales in comparison, however, to the increase from 2014, with 31 overdoses.

Rick Strait, a program manager for Community Counseling Center, a nonprofit behavioral health organization in Cape Girardeau, said the drop in the number of overdoses at hospitals was surprising.

Strait’s outpatient-treatment programs began with just three patients in 2013 and now has more than 90 in Cape Girardeau, Perry and Bollinger counties.

He said the awareness of the affects of opioids has become more prevalent, but he’s not sure whether it’s necessarily reaching addicts.

Strait is trying to treat not only the physical dependency addicts have built for drugs, but the mental and emotional dependencies as well.

With Community Counseling’s focus on mental health, Strait has treated on the underlying causes of addiction, including people who used drugs for social fulfillment, to blot out pain or for an adrenaline rush.

Gibson Recovery Center chief operating officer Ryan Essex said he has seen overdoses in the area level off, but he does not think they are decreasing.

Essex said the national conversation about the danger of opioids has affected for users.

More importantly, the 21st Cures Act, passed by Congress in 2015, will provide funding at local levels for anti-overdose medications such as Narcan, Essex said.

The Cape Girardeau County coroner’s office reported there were 23 mixed-drug intoxication deaths, which includes overdoses, in 2016.

“I can say, in speaking with our staff, that there is a perception that overdose deaths have been increasing over the past three years,” Cape Girardeau County deputy coroner Dennis Turner wrote in an email.

Former Perry County coroner Jim Martin estimated of 27 total deaths investigated by the coroner’s office in 2016, 80 percent were drug-related. Drug-related can include accidents, Martin said.

“We attempt to hide from it, pretend it’s not as serious as it is,” Martin said of the drug problem in Southeast Missouri.

Eric Morton, a doctor in Cape Girardeau, said drug use is as prevalent in Southeast Missouri at it ever has been.

His 25-year-old son, Alex, died of a heroin overdose in February 2015. Alex Morton was sober three years before he relapsed and was attending two 12-step addition-recovery groups, Eric Morton said.

“Addiction is always there,” Morton said. “It’s always calling you back.”

Morton said the pain of his son’s death is as intense as the day he was told by police.

He has been open about the experience, but he sees people sometimes recoil when he tells them his son died of an overdose.

“It makes people very uncomfortable,” Morton said. “Addiction and alcoholism are all around us.”

He said people’s perception of addicts is to view them as almost subhuman.

He said he knows when people saw Alex, they did not realize he was an addict.

“What’s the face of a drug addict?” Morton said. “It’s prevalent in Southeast Missouri. It’s in good families in Southeast Missouri. It’s just something nobody wants to talk about.”

bkleine@semissourian.com

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