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Sep 6, 2024 By Zach Petroff 3 min read

Last year Fayette County saw the second highest number of overdose deaths in the past 23 years, according to the Fayette County Coroner’s annual report.

There were 74 overdose deaths in 2023, a 4.2% increase from the previous year. The highest number of deaths attributed to overdoses between 2000 and 2023 was 81, in 2021.

For Melissa Ferris, executive director of the Fayette County Drug and Alcohol Commission, overdose deaths are a troubling trend.

“It’s truly frightening the amount of overdose that we’re seeing in our county,” Ferris said.

According to the report issued by Coroner Dr. Bob Baker, from 2000 to 2023 there have been 842 overdose deaths. The county did see a significant drop of overdose deaths in 2018 (41) and 2019 (40) but since 2020 there have been at least 65 deaths per year.

Baker, who released the report on Friday, said he hopes the report can bring awareness and help prevent future overdose deaths.

“When you look at the data research you see there are spikes and peaks and valleys of when the overdose deaths occurred,” he said. “We’re looking to put our heads together and hopefully can come up with some ways to explain why this happened and more importantly, how to bring those numbers down.”

Of the 74 deaths last year, men were twice as likely to have died from overdose. According to the report, men between the ages of 31 to 40 had the highest number of overdoses last year with 18 deaths.

“I’ve been working for the Drug and Alcohol Commission for 19 years and from looking at our annual report every year, historically we see more males in the range from 25 to 50 access our services more,” Ferris said.

The report also showed which drugs were most commonly present in overdose deaths last year. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid was present in 55% of deaths, cocaine was the second highest substance reported at 39%.

“Fentanyl is laced with marijuana and can be mixed with cocaine and when cut it can mixed in with heroin,” Ferris said. “Fentanyl is an extremely powerful opiate.”

Xylazine, an animal tranquilizer, was the third highest, found in 27% of overdose deaths last year.

Ferris said the Drug and Alcohol Commission has testing strips available for fentanyl and xylazine. Ferris noted that Narcan, an overdose reversal drug for opioids, does not work on xylazine.

In at least 33 deaths last year, opioids were present. Buprenorphine, the most frequent of the opioids, showed up 11 times in reports, followed by methadone with seven occurrences, and morphine with five.

Benzodiazepines were present in 13 cases last year.

Antidepressants were also found in 28 of the overdose deaths last year, with sertraline found most often, and present in nine deaths.

“I’m hoping that people that need services will reach out to our office so we can get the help they need to help minimize some of those overdoses,” Ferris said.