Alert

Imagine an epidemic that wipes out the equivalent of 83 percent of St. Joseph’s population in a single year. From that, an understanding grows about the nation’s battle against opioid-related deaths.

The latest numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics indicate that more than 63,600 people died of drug overdoses in the United States during 2016.

The statistics listed Missouri as one of 12 states with an overdose death rate higher than the U.S. rate. The Missouri rate stood at 23.6 deaths per 100,000 population in 2016, while the national rate came in at 19.8.

Opioid drugs, everything from heroin to synthetic products like fentanyl, have been cited as a reason for the sharp increase in the overdose deaths.

According to the statistical service of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone doubled between 2015 and 2016.

In the 12-month period that ended last June, Missouri had 1,381 deaths due to drug overdoses, an increase of more than 19 percent as a comparative from the previous June. Over the same period, Kansas had 295 such deaths.

Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt has been instrumental in the congressional response to this crisis not only because of the impact on his home state. He serves as chairman of the appropriations subcommittee providing funds to the Department of Health and Human Services, one agency taking on the problem.

As the epidemic has grown, the Republican senator said appropriators have increased funding to combat the opioid problem by more than $900 million over the last two years, a rise of nearly 200 percent.

Other federal departments, like Justice and Veterans Affairs, also have gotten increased money to deal with the crisis.

Speaking on the Senate floor last week, Blunt said the amount of money, while significant, had to be spent in the proper way to make a difference. To him, that meant getting funds to local jurisdictions, the front lines of opioid response.

“If you are a fire department that also has first responders, your department is three times more likely to go on an overdose call than they are to go to a fire,” he said. “That is where we are in this situation today.”

In addition to the human toll claimed by the drug, the American economy has suffered. Blunt cited a CDC estimate that the opioid crisis created an economic burden totaling $80 billion a year.

The states with the highest drug overdose death rates in the current accounting are West Virginia (52 per 100,000 population), Ohio (39.1) and New Hampshire (39).

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, also a Republican, said the fight against opioids must be waged on many different fronts.

“Can we treat ourselves out of this? Can we law enforce ourselves out of this? Can we prevent ourselves out of this? I think we can do all of those,” she said to fellow senators. “We have to have a component of research that looks at the alternatives to pain medications and pain management.”

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