City surpasses last year's overdose numbers
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on October 24, 2017 5:50 AM
Overdoses reported recently sent the city's total number of overdoses for the year past the total amount reported in 2016.
As of Monday, 68 overdoses have been reported in the city this year.
In 2016, 66 total overdoses were reported.
These numbers include all narcotics, including heroin.
Despite a massive seizure of 10 pounds of heroin in September, overdoses began climbing after the narcotic was seized by law enforcement.
Authorities say one theory for why the number of overdoses spiked after the seizure of heroin is because dealers might have begun cutting their product with other substances to make the supply last longer, making the doses more lethal than before.
"A theory of mine is what little bit was left, people were cutting it with whatever they could cut it with to make it last," said Capt. G.N. Lynch of the Goldsboro Police Department's VICE Unit in a recent interview. "That's obviously going to make your overdoses go up, because there's no telling what they're cutting it with."
Goldsboro Police Chief Mike West said the number of overdoses began going up around June of this year.
"June is where we started picking up the pace," West said. "June, July, August and September all exceeded those same months last year. For October, we're on pace to exceed last year's numbers, too."
None of the overdoses reported in the city this year have proven fatal.
Heroin and opioid addiction is a national crisis that has slid its long tendrils into many areas of North Carolina.
In 2016, a report from a San Francisco-based health care information company ranked Wilmington as having the highest rate of opioid abuse in the nation.
Law enforcement agencies in surrounding counties are also struggling to combat the problem, as they have expressed that any time a heroin dealer is taken off the street, more pop up in their place to meet the market demand.
According to data from the North Carolina Chief Medical Examiner's Office, there were six unintentional heroin-related deaths in Wayne County in 2016.