And if caught go to prison
Your point? They aren’t the only ones
News Flash: from a few articles
The Biden administration made Narcan, a nasal spray version of the overdose-reversal medication naloxone, available without a prescription and broadened access to medications to treat opioid addiction.
One of Evelyn Tharp’s sons died of a drug overdose. So did her brother. And two nephews and a niece. Her surviving son and daughter wrestle with severe mental illness and drug use.
Each week, Coyne drops by the family’s home in the hardscrabble Price Hill neighborhood. She ferries Tharp’s 44-year-old daughter to receive medication that treats opioid addiction. Coyne has arranged many stays at hospitals and treatment centers for Tharp’s 39-year-old son — and revived him multiple times after finding him unconscious from overdoses.
“He’d be dead if not for Sarah,” Tharp, 67, said.
The story of Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, is the story of much of America at the start of 2025. Deaths from drug overdoses have fallen sharply, offering hope the crisis will further ease. Here, as in many communities ravaged by the opioid crisis, users are adapting to an evolving illicit drug supply dominated by potent fentanyl and often mixed with other synthetic drugs. At the same time, lifesaving antidotes flood the streets, and teams swoop in to offer services to people who have overdosed.
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The reduction in deaths is not distributed evenly. A national decline probably reflects sharp decreases in more populous states that began in mid-2023, said Nabarun Dasgupta, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In many states, declines in deaths started even earlier, he said. “The Trump administration is inheriting an encouraging landscape of declining overdoses,” Dasgupta said.
In states where illegal fentanyl may have permeated more recently — such as Alaska and Nevada — officials note increases in fatal overdoses.
Changes in the ingredients of illegal drugs may also play a significant role in reducing deaths.
In Ohio as in many states, fentanyl dealers add drugs such as the animal tranquilizer xylazine, which prolongs the sedating effect but also causes nasty flesh wounds. Paradoxically, the mix may save lives, staving off opioid withdrawal so that users may consume less fentanyl each day, Dasgupta said. “Fewer rolls of the dice,” he said.
