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By BONNIE ADAMS badams@leader.net
Saturday, March 08, 2003 Page: 1A
WILKES-BARRE – The New York City medical school professor who has called
this area’s drug overdose death rate an epidemic said Friday that long-time
addicts in Luzerne County are dying at an increasingly rapid rate.
“This is the older crowd of drug users,” said Ernest Drucker of 35- to
44-year-old addicts.
The 24 people in that age group who fatally overdosed in the county last
year comprised 37 percent of county overdose deaths.
Drucker found that the number of older addicts who fatally overdosed has
steadily increased since 1998. They included two deaths in 1998; 12 in 1999;
16 in 2000; 19 in 2001 and 24 in 2002.
Drucker’s research of county Coroner’s Office records showed a total of 54
overdose deaths for all ages in 2002. The updated total is 64 confirmed
overdose deaths last year, according to the Coroner’s Office.
His research of the county’s total overdose deaths found six in 1998; 39 in
1999; 39 in 2000; 41 in 2001; and 64 in 2002.
“Obviously those people who died are just the tip of the iceberg,” said
Drucker, a professor at The University Hospital for the Albert Einstein
College of Medicine. He operated a methadone clinic for heroin addicts in the
Bronx for 20 years.
“People are dying who need not die.”
Drucker explained why older drug users might be dying. He said experienced
heroin addicts might try to decrease their use of heroin because of its cost
or for other reasons; heroin typically sells for more here than in larger
cities such as Philadelphia.
He said experienced addicts might use less heroin than at the peak of their
habits, but use a mix of drugs that leaves them at risk because of lowered
tolerance, today’s more potent heroin and the availability of powerful
prescription painkillers. “They try other drugs to minimize that (cost). They
take what they can get.”
Drucker said toxicology reports typically show heroin in combination with
painkillers like Oxycontin, plus alcohol and tranquilizers.
His research from Luzerne County will be included in a paper he plans to
present this fall at the American Public Health Association conference.
He supports the methadone clinic that Wyoming Valley Health Care System
recently proposed for Laird Street in Plains Township. He said that if treated
with methadone, addicts with a drug use history similar to those now dying
locally have a much smaller death rate.
Methadone, a synthetic narcotic, curbs the craving for heroin and eases the
withdrawal from the drug.
Drucker visited Wilkes-Barre in July. He discussed the area’s drug overdose
rate. He noted a prejudice against drug treatment and a “not-on-my-block”
mentality against methadone clinics.
“Those who are dying are your husbands, sons and brother,” he said Friday.
Bonnie Adams, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7241.