HAMILTON COUNTY, Ohio — For the first time in a decade, the number of overdose deaths in Hamilton County has decreased, according to the Hamilton County Addiction Response Coalition's (HC ARC) annual report.
"Personally, this is an incredible moment," said Tom Synan, chief of the Newtown Police Department and co-chair of the HC ARC.
Synan said he remembers when the county hit a crisis point.
"At times we saw nearly 200 overdoses in a week, up to 40 a day," Synan said.
Now, the coalition announced a 16% drop in overdose deaths in 2022, from 515 in 2021 to 433 in 2022. The report also shows a 24% drop from the 570 overdose deaths at the peak of the crisis in 2017, to 2022.
"This is the first year since the work began that we've seen a decrease in overdose deaths," said Hamilton County Commissioner Denise Driehaus.
Synan said there were several key things that led to this.
"One of the big ones is this change in belief and change in the stigma and really humanizing," he said.
Law enforcement, Synan said, began advocating for those struggling with addiction and viewing it as a chronic mental and medical health condition.
The more widespread availability of Narcan also made a big difference, as well as the coalition's focus on addiction treatment services.
"The last thing you want to do is isolate them, isolate them in some kind of cell and not give them the opportunity to talk, engage, interact, heal," said Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey.
A new option for inmates was announced Friday.
The Hamilton County Justice Center is implementing Capacity and Recovery Expansion (CARE) pods. These are 92 beds not inside cells, but inside dormitory-style pods, to provide treatment services for inmates struggling with addiction or mental health.
"Instead of this continual cycle that was not doing any good before these PODS, before we changed the way we deal with addiction, now there's opportunity to change people's lives," Synan said.
The pods are set to be up and running by late summer. Hamilton County has released a Request for Proposals to administer the treatment and recovery program.
With 433 overdose deaths in 2022, officials said there's still work to be done.
"Now it is, how can we change the infrastructure to give someone next-level care, all the way to active recovery and then support after that," Synan said.
He said this is what the Coalition has been working on over the last year or so and what it'll continue to work on this year.
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