Tag: opioids

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As Opioid Overdoses Spike, Officials Up Enforcement, Prevention Efforts

CREDIT: DEA

DEA

The head of the Shelby County Health Department (SCHD) said Monday that the opioid epidemic is continuing to plague the community in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, noting a recent spike in overdoses and deaths.

In the past 60 days, Dr. Alisa Haushalter, director of the SCHD, said there have been an “unprecedented” number of overdoses and deaths. Since March 15th, there have been 700 overdoses resulting in 102 deaths.

“This is significantly more deaths than have occurred with COVID-19 so we want to bring this particular issue back to the public’s attention,” Haushalter said at a Tuesday press conference.

“The deadly drugs are not taking a break during this unprecedented time in our country,” said Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich. “The drug dealers are clearly not taking a break. Law enforcement is not taking a break either.”

Weirich said law enforcement will do “everything they can in their power” to arrest and bring to justice individuals distributing drugs in the community.

“The reason it is important is not simply because it’s against the law,” Weirich said. “The reason it is important to us is because people are dying. Our sons, our daughters, our brothers, our sisters, our mothers, our fathers are dying every day because of these deadly drugs. The enforcement effort will not stop and it will only increase in the wake of this disturbing news.”

Weirich also warned the public of the dangers of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that can be 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.

“A dose of fentanyl the size of Abraham Lincoln’s nose on a penny is enough to kill you,” she said. “Think about that for just a moment. For anybody out there that is contemplating experimenting with these drugs, contemplating trying these drugs, know what you‘re dealing with and know the deadliness of these substances.”

D. Michael Dunavant, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, said the opioid issue is a “pandemic within a pandemic” and it’s important to raise awareness about the opioid epidemic “that has not gone away, but in fact has dramatically increased during the time we’ve been dealing with the COVID pandemic.”

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“Drug dealers continue to deliver,” Dunavant said. “Drug dealers do not self-quarantine and criminals do not engage in social distancing. Unfortunately, through a number of factors in people’s lives here in Memphis and Shelby County the demand for these opioids has risen. Unfortunately, enterprising drug dealers and drug trafficking organizations have risen their supply to meet that demand.”

Dunavant said the unprecedented spike in overdoses calls for a multi-disciplinary, multi-agency response, which includes education and public awareness, prevention of new users, treatment and rehabilitation, and enforcement.

Law enforcement agents are “working tirelessly” to find, arrest, and prosecute drug distributors who are contributing to overdoses and deaths, he said. Dunavant iterates that distributing a narcotic that leads to someone’s death is a violation of both state and federal law, for which dealers face a minimum sentence of 20 years.

“We can and we will find you and hold you accountable if you are distributing poison into our communities,” Dunavant said.

For those using these drugs, Dunavant said there are treatment and recovery resources available to help.

One resource is the Tennessee REDLINE, a hotline people can call to access treatment. Reach the hotline at 1-800-889-9789.

Haushalter also said people can call the Memphis Area Prevention Coalition at 901-249-2828 for assistance in accessing services, including access to Narcan, which is used to help reverse opioid overdoses.

Finally, the county’s Street Team for Overdose Prevention (STOP) will be hosting events this week to distribute overdose prevention kits with Narcan as well as exchange needles.

The STOP events will be:

Tuesday (today) and Thursday, May 21st: 4-8 p.m, 3360 N. Watkins Street, 2760 S. Perkins Road, 3362 Third Street.

Wednesday, May 20th, and Friday, May 22nd: 4-8 p.m., Sycamore View Road; 1-3 p.m. 28 N. Claybrook Street; 6:30-8:30 p.m., 3628 Summer Avenue

Saturday, May 23rd: 1-6 p.m., all sites

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Drug Overdose Deaths Rose in Tennessee Last Year Amidst Falling National Trend

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Justin Fox Burks

Drug overdose deaths rose to a record high in Tennessee in 2018, according to new statistics released by the Centers for Disease Controls (CDC), while the numbers were down nationally.

There were 1,837 drug overdose deaths recorded in Tennessee last year, 3 percent more than in 2017. However, such deaths were down 5.1 percent across the country, marking the first decline of overdoses in 25 years.

The figures were discussed recently on an episode of Tennessee Court Talk, a podcast from the Tennessee Supreme Court and the Administrative Office of the Courts. The episode featured Special Agent Tommy Farmer from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) Dangerous Drug Task Force and Dr. Robert Pack, professor of community and behavior health at East Tennessee State University (ETSU).

Farmer, from the TBI, said he wasn’t surprised to see the increase in overdose deaths but hoped the state would “plateau off.” He said the rise is thanks to a transition to illegal drugs from prescription medications.
[pullquote-1] “There’s no doubt it has to do with fentanyl and heroin and the availability of them,” Farmer said.

Pack, the doctor from ETSU, said he didn’t expect a dramatic decrease in the figures here but was pleased to see the shift in the figures nationally. He said headway on reducing overdose deaths in Tennessee won’t be made unless changes are made closer to the source of the problem.

“We have to get upstream as far as we can to stop the cycle of addiction that is occurring in these (communities),” Pack said. “If we can’t stop it, then all we can do is repeat it.”

One way to do that, Pack said, would be to influence kids to be more resistant to drugs.

While much more work needs to be done, Pack and Farmer said gains have been made in Tennessee, particularly addressing the opioid crisis. Pack said more agencies are better reporting overdose deaths now than ever before, which could be one reason for the 2018 spike.

“We’ve said for a long time that the numbers were grossly underreported,” Farmer said. “There’s a lot more out there than we’re actually seeing. I do believe this number indicates that we’re doing a better job of getting good information.”

Overdose deaths are higher in big cities, Farmer said, but that doesn’t always mean the deceased lived in them. Large cities serve as a source of drugs for dealers, so drugs are cheaper there. Also, people want to be closer to the source of their drugs, so they’ll travel to it. When they get the drugs, they don’t wait to take them home, he said, “they’re getting the drugs and overdosing at that location.”

Pack said Tennessee now has better access to care and drugs to help those addicted than ever before.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid pain reliever usually prescribed to cancer patience, is on the rise in Tennessee, Farmer said. The drug is powerful, he said. One thing that means is that it’s shipped in smaller units (like the size of two sugar packs), making it harder for law enforcement to detect.

DEA

The opioid fentanyl can be 100 times more potent than morphine.

The drug is being mixed with methamphetamine or heroin. It’s smuggled to Tennessee largely from suppliers in China or Mexico, Farmer said. For users, “it gives them an incredibly powerful high,” Pack said.

What fentanyl gets mixed with largely depends on what is popular in different areas of the state, Farmer said. In Memphis, that’s heroin, where “there’s always been a steady availability” of the drug, he said. Oxycontin is popular in Oak Ridge and Percocet is favored in Nashville.
[pullquote-2] But dealers will blend their drugs with just about anything, Farmer said, if they fear customer complaints. He said TBI agents have found drug operations outfitted with blenders bought from Walmart or Walgreens producing drugs that are not at all what the dealer said they were selling.

“We’ve seen crazy concoctions, made from anything they can get their hands on, from aspirin to ibuprofen to vitamin B12,” Farmer said. “It doesn’t matter as long as it gets them high. The potency of fentanyl is so powerful in microscopic amounts that it doesn’t take much at all.”

Meth returns

Meth is returning to Tennessee “with a vengeance,” Farmer said. The TBI lab is on track to get more submissions of meth than ever before.

“We’ll probably see more than even back in the heyday and at the height of our meth epidemic when the state of Tennessee had the dubious distinction of being No. 1 in the country, the meth capital of the country,” Farmer said.

Laws here have made it harder to get the ingredients to make meth and seizures of meth labs have decreased here by about 86 percent, Farmer said. But what remains is an “insatiable appetite for stimulants in our state” and a steady supply of meth from Mexican drug cartels.

Pack said methadone clinics are seeing a rise in patients screening positive for meth.

“We can’t just deal with this on the treatment side,” Pack said. “We have got to get upstream and deal with whatever it is that is driving people to seek (meth) to fix their pain, their physical or emotional pain with something other than coping or other effective strategies.”

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What’s In A Name? ‘Operation Non-Believers’ Explained

CREDIT: Memphis Police Department

Memphis Police Department

A pile of cash and drugs seized during Operation Non-Believers.

You’ve probably seen by now that the Memphis Police Department made two huge busts this week, netting some 400 arrests.

The arrests were the culmination of two, weeks-long operations. The one that focused primarily on violent crime was called “Operation Spring Cleaning.” That name is pretty straight forward. It’s spring time. They’re cleaning up the streets. OK.

The second operation focused on drugs. It, however, was mysteriously called “Operation Non-Believers.” That one was subtle, a head scratcher. What could that possibly mean? Was this some atheist drug ring they busted?

Louis Brownlee, the legal officer and public information officer with MPD, patiently explained to us, uh, no.

“This operation was coined ‘Operation Non-Believers’ because dealers are continuously attempting to possess, deliver, and sell heroin and fentanyl on the streets of Memphis; without believing they will be arrested for their unlawful actions,” Brownlee said in a statement.

Memphis Police Department

A pile of cash and drugs seized during Operation Non-Believers.


Here’s how MPD described Operation Non-Believers in a news statement yesterday:

“Operation Non-Believers” started in January 2019; members of the Memphis Police Department’s Organized Crime Unit identified Darius Chalmers and several other co-conspirators as being high to mid-level distributors of heroin and fentanyl. During the investigation, Detectives identify (30) individuals who conspired in distributing as much as a half kilogram of heroin and fentanyl per week in Memphis and Northern Mississippi.

On Wednesday, May 29th, 2019, a detective presented the Shelby County Grand jury with the facts of this investigation. The thirty (30) individuals involved in this investigation, (22) men and (8) women, were each indicted on four felony counts of:

Conspiracy: unlawful possession of a controlled substance 150g or more to sell in a drug-free school zone;

Conspiracy: unlawful possession of a controlled substance 150g or more to deliver in a drug free school zone;

Conspiracy: unlawful possession of a controlled substance 2,000g or more to sell in a drug free school zone; and

Conspiracy: unlawful possession of a controlled substance 2,000g or more to deliver in a drug free school zone.

All are A-level felonies, each of which carries (15) to (25) years in prison without parole.

On Monday, June 3, 2019, the Organized Crime Unit conducted a roundup operation to locate and arrest these individuals. Detectives arrested (16) of the (30) individuals indicted. There were also two (2) additional individuals arrested for unrelated drug charges.

During this investigation, detectives recovered (101.8) grams of Fentanyl, 11.0 grams of marijuana, and (20) firearms (3-Rifles and 17-handguns). Detectives seized (12) vehicles and approximately ($31, 200.00) cash as suspected drug proceeds. Detectives also served (7) search warrants throughout Memphis and Shelby County. Of the (30) individuals indicted, (9) of them were either affiliated with or a member of the Crips Street Gang.

These individuals ranged in age from (24) to (62) years of age and some of them had prior arrest for Aggravated Assault, Robbery, Rape, Theft, Drugs Possession, and Felon Weapon Violations.

The Memphis Police Department would like to thank the Shelby County Attorney General’s Office for providing guidance and operational assistance throughout this entire operation.

The Memphis Police Department is continuously working to create a crime and drug free community for the citizens of this city. These operations are in conjunction with the vision and initiative of Memphis Police Department to combat the crime issues within the City of Memphis.

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Leaders Convene to Address Opioid Epidemic in West Tennessee

A Shelby County Health Department representative speaks at the West Tennessee Opioid Summit


Through the occasional tear, a longtime Memphis journalist told the story of his 27-year-old daughter’s heroin overdose to a crowded room on Tuesday.

At the West Tennessee Opioid Summit, Ron Maxey of The Daily Memphian said it has been almost five years since he found his daughter’s lifeless body following a fatal overdose.

He said he tells her story so that people will understand the effect that opioid abuse can have on families.

Hundreds, including Shelby County Health Department (SCHD) officials, Memphis Fire and Police personnel, representatives of insurance carriers and pharmaceutical companies, law enforcement officials, and physicians gathered Tuesday to discuss the opioid epidemic in West Tennessee and brainstorm possible solutions.

The latest available data from the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) shows that of the 1,776 drug overdose deaths that occurred in the state in 2017, 1,268 of them were opioid related.

Nationwide, 30 Americans die every day from opioid overdose, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Memphis Police Department (MPD) director Michael Rallings said since he was appointed in 2016, he has gained a different perspective on the opioid crisis, recognizing its implications. Rallings said there are a lot of conversations about reducing violent crime, but not enough about the opioid epidemic.

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Across the country, there are about 17,000 homicides each year, but there are 70,000 drug-related deaths, Rallings said. Seventy percent of all crime here is related to drugs, Rallings added.

“We need to focus on some of the real problems,” Rallings said. “And this is one of those real problems. You don’t need the police director to come here and tell you we have a problem. We all know that we have a problem. The question becomes what are we going to do about it.”

Each quarter, Rallings said he meets with chiefs from police departments around the country to discuss major issues in their respective communities, and that the opioid epidemic is “at the top of the list.”

“So I’m worried about the future,” he said. “I’m worried about the future because we are hooked on drugs. We have a number of epidemics that we should be alarmed about. Not only do we have an opioid epidemic, but we have a public health emergency with mental illness.”

Rallings said “we cannot turn this epidemic into a law enforcement problem.”

To help reduce the number of overdoses here, Rallings said police officers are being trained to administer naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. Of the 2,100 active MPD officers, Rallings said 1,379 officers have received training and carry the drug while on duty.

Since 2017, there have been 116 doses of naloxone administered here, resulting in 106 survivals.

Another way that the department is working to address the issue is with the Street Team for Opioid Prevention (STOP). STOP, a product of the Shelby County Opioid Epidemic Response Plan which was formed last year, is made up of law enforcement and other community partners.

STOP will focus on engaging residents through education, referrals to community resources, and harm reduction.

Later this month the team is slated to hold a community event at the former Applebees on Sycamore View — a hotbed for opioid use and distribution, Rallings said. The team, along with volunteers, will be there to provide assistance and resources to those using opioids.

Rallings said the group’s focus will be on prevention, education, and treatment: “We’re not there to lock anybody up.”

We’re going to ground zero. We’re going to go in there and see if we can make a difference. That’s one of our highest call areas, so we feel like that’s a great place to be.”

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Memphis is situated in a location where people can easily pass narcotics through, Assistant United States Attorney, Michelle Kimbril-Parks said.

The Department of Justice’s primary focus here is addressing the supply and demand, she said.

Under the Heroin Initiative, a collaborative effort of local enforcement agencies, Kimbril-Parks said every individual in the possession of an opioid who gets stopped or arrested is reviewed by law enforcement.

The primary question the team looks to answer is where did the drugs come from.

“We’re not just interested in the street suppliers,” Kimbril-Parks said. “We’re utilizing every tool in the toolbox to determine where this individual got this dope. We want to identify every individual in the chain and hold them accountable.”

Jerry Jones, an anesthesiologist at Regional One Health, talked about the risk factors that could lead to an opioid addiction, such as undergoing surgery. 

Jones said there are other ways to combat acute and chronic pain, such as nerve blockers. Even serious injuries don’t always require narcotics, he said. 

But, Jones said it would take a culture change for medical professionals to be willing to try alternative treatments. 

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Phillip Northcross, a doctor of internal medicine at LeBonheur Healthcare, agreed that there are other viable options to manage pain. Northcross said acupuncture, physical therapy, and lifestyle changes are a few of them. He also said that recent studies have shown that Tylenol and Ibuprofen can be very effective for managing pain.

However, he said it is hard to get patients who are used to being prescribed narcotics to try other options.

“They just don’t buy it,” Northcross said. “As physicians it’s our responsibility to change that thinking to get people to embrace other modes of pain treatment.”

After the presenters spoke, attendees of the conference broke into groups to brainstorm solutions to the opioid crisis here, focusing on the four pillars of the SCHD’s plan to address the epidemic: law enforcement and first responders, data usage and integration, prevention and education, and treatment and recovery.

Some of the solutions suggested include working to erase the stigma associated with opioid addiction, providing a holistic system of recovery, legalizing marijuana, and pushing elected officials and lawmakers to address the issue further through legislation, funding, and initiatives.

Officials with the SCHD said the real time solution produced by the groups will guide the department’s efforts to combat the crisis.

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Memphis Doctors, Nurses Charged With Illegally Distributing Opioids

Five Memphis medical professionals were indicted Thursday for illegally distributing opioid prescriptions to patients — in one case in return for sexual favors.

The five Memphis professionals were indicted along with 11 others from Jackson, Tennessee, who were arrested in a Wednesday sweep coordinated by U.S. Attorneys and the Department of Justice’s Appalachian Regional Prescription Opioid Strike Force (ARPO).

D. Michael Dunavant, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, said the 16 defendants together allegedly distributed more than 350,000 prescriptions for controlled substances, equalling about 32 million pills.

“Opioid misuse and abuse is an insidious epidemic, created in large part by the over-prescribing of potent opioids nationwide, and unfortunately, Tennessee is at the center,” Dunavant said. “ We will not stand by and allow the harmful and oftentimes deadly practice of over-prescribing highly addictive drugs to continue unchecked.

“Along with our partners, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will pursue medical personnel who misuse their positions of trust to blatantly disregard and endanger others’ very lives for their own financial gain.”

Through “good old-fashioned police work,” undercover efforts, and data analytics, Dunavant said the ARPO Strike Force was able to identify medical professionals in West Tennessee prescribing excessive amounts of narcotics.

Defendant Richard Farmer, a Memphis psychiatrist, allegedly issued controlled substances at his clinic here without a medical diagnosis and sometimes in return for sexual favors. Farmer is also accused of providing these substances to pregnant women.

Two more local doctors, Michael Hellman and Thomas Hughes, were also taken into custody and indicted Wednesday. Hellman is accused of prescribing large amounts of promethazine with codeine, a Schedule V controlled substance, without doing medical examinations.

Hellman gave these substances to confidential informants on multiple occasions, according to court documents.

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Hughes, an endocrinologist, is accused of fraudulently dispensing a Schedule III substance for testosterone to himself.

James Litton, a former nurse practitioner, is charged with conspiracy to distribute and dispense controlled substances, as well as healthcare fraud.

Finally, Kathryn Russell, a registered nurse here, allegedly prescribed opioids and other drug cocktails to drug-seekers with no legitimate medical purposes. Court documents also indicate that Russell might have been under the influence of drugs while working.

If found guilty, all of the defendants, with exclusion of Hughes, face up to 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $1 million. Hughes, faces up to four years of imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000 for dispensing substances to himself. Law enforcement will look to link each of the 16 individuals to specific cases of opioid overdoses, Dunavant said.

“It is clear that these defendants charged in this ARPO Strike Force initiative has contributed to and caused much harm, addiction, pain, injury, and perhaps even death here in West Tennessee,” Dunavant said. “These physicians are nothing more than white-coated drug dealers with prescription pads. And if these licensed medical professionals are going to act like drug dealers, we’re going to treat them like drugs dealers.”

Dunavant added that he “had no problem signing the 16 indictments,” and that there “will be more to come.”

The ARPO Strike Force, formed in October, is a joint law-enforcement effort by the FBI, DEA, several U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, and others. The mission of the strike force is to identify and investigate health care fraud involving the illegal distribution of opioids

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 130 Americans die every day from opioid overdose.

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Editorial Opinion

County Commission and Luttrell Clash Over Opioid Suit

Even as candidates are sorting themselves out for next year’s elections to the Shelby County Commission and the office of county mayor, the current version of the commission is still involved in what has been an extended power struggle with outgoing Mayor Mark Luttrell. That conflict has now entered an intense new phase, prompted by a disagreement between the warring entities over strategies for dealing with the ongoing opioid crisis.

The current wrangle was precipitated last Thursday by commission chair Heidi Shafer’s independent action in signing on with a national law firm to prosecute a lawsuit against a variety of drug manufacturers, pharmacies, and physicians. Luttrell objected to what he saw as a usurpation of administrative authority under the county charter and — pending the outcome of a scheduled mid-week vote by the commission on a resolution of support for Shafer’s action — prepared legal action to abort it.

Ostensibly, the dispute is over a choice of law firms to pursue remedies for damages resulting to Shelby County and its citizens from the ongoing opioid epidemic, as well as over the nature and scope of the recovery effort, and the timetable for prosecuting it. There are legitimate differences of opinion on these matters, and there is no denying the importance of the opioid crisis or its effect on Shelby County. The fundamental differences between the Luttrell administration and what would seem to be a majority of the 13-member commission are rooted in the aforementioned power struggle, one which has the potential to overshadow the long-distance future of local government.

The  basic conflict began during budget deliberations a couple of seasons back, when a majority of commission members chafed at what they saw as the county administration’s too-close-to-the-vest accounting of the county’s fund balance. Even after the budget of 2015 was finally signed, sealed, and delivered, the commission and administration clashed repeatedly over funding matters, with the commission wanting ever more information about and oversight over the process. In the ensuing struggle, the commission sought to hire an independent attorney to help monitor fiscal matters. In the end, former Commissioner Julian Bolton was allowed to come aboard as a kind of ad hoc “policy adviser” to the commission. He is now, as it happens, serving also as local counsel for Napoli Shkolnick, the firm with which Shafer executed her agreement on behalf of the county and one that, she says, is assisting the opioid-related legal efforts of numerous other governmental entities nationwide.

Luttrell insists that the administration has been on course to develop its own timely legal strategy on behalf of Shelby County, has dutifully and fully kept the commission informed of its efforts, and that the current imbroglio can only create confusion and delay and impede a successful legal effort on the opioid issue.

The disagreement will doubtless be resolved by mediation or judicial ruling, and the county charter, which was extensively revised in the recent past, may have to undergo further alterations by referendum or convention. At the moment, though, both the opioid crisis and the ever-worsening strains within county government are serious problems calling for some immediate solution, even if only a stopgap one.