By Jonathan Samples | Bugle Staff
Will County Coroner Patrick O’Neil painted a grim picture of heroin and opioid use during an event last week designed to bring attention to the deadly impact those drugs are having throughout the state.
Thus far in 2016, the county has seen 20 confirmed overdose deaths related to heroin or opioid abuse, and officials suspect that the drug played a role in an additional six pending death investigations.
“We may be at 26 before the first of May,” O’Neil said. “That’s probably going to escalate these figures into the 80s or 90s before the end of the year.”
At that rate, Will County is on pace to experience its deadliest year to date for heroin overdose – another sad reminder that the local and national heroin epidemic is still prevalent.
The county coroner’s grave prediction came during the 2016 HERO-HELPS-Southwest Coalition Community Summit – held April 29 at the Edward Hospital Athletic and Events Center in Romeoville. O’Neill was one of several speakers from state and local agencies who spoke during the event, which is now in its fifth year. These healthcare professionals, elected officials and other stakeholders addressed issues ranging from ways to combat the growing number of heroin overdose deaths to highlighting new statewide initiatives aimed at targeting what they all agreed was a serious public health emergency.
“Addiction is a biological, medical issue,” said Kelly O’Brien, executive director of the Kennedy Forum project in Illinois. “This is not an issue of people just not doing the right thing.”
O’Brien moderated a speaker panel on the various aspects of implementing the 2015 Heroin Crisis Act – a bipartisan bill that addresses the state’s heroin crisis by improving access to treatment and overdose prevention methods.
State Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, was the main sponsor for the House bill that ultimately became the Heroin Crisis Act.
“At this time, when it is hard to productively legislate and it’s sometimes hard to collaborate, Rep. Lang and Rep. [John] Anthony managed to advance bipartisan legislation that makes a really big difference in the lives of everybody, and I mean everybody, in this state,” O’Brien said. “If people align around a common purpose, if you can be clear about what that is – even though you have a disagreement about how to get there – you can get there.”
Prior to the panel discussion, Lang gave an overview of legislation he described as an in-depth and comprehensive approach to addressing a myriad of problems associated with heroin use and prevention.
“It deals with anything you can think of,” Lang said of the act. “It deals with drug courts, with prescription monitoring programs… with law enforcement, with education, with first responders, with medicated treatment.”
Some aspects of the new law include changes in insurance coverage for treatment; new requirements for the disposal of unused prescriptions; over-the-counter dispensing of the opioid antagonist naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of heroin overdose; and new requirements for state recording of drug overdose cases.
Not stopping there, the Skokie Democrat is fighting for two additional pieces of legislation. Lang introduced a pair of bills last month that do more to address education and treatment options. House Bill 5593 would help educate people addicted to heroin and who receive government assistance about available treatment options. House Bill 5594 would amend the Drug Court Treatment Act by prohibiting drug court judges from denying defendant’s access to medication-assisted treatments such as methadone.
The 2016 HERO-HELPS-Southwest Coalition Community Summit is sponsored by the Heroin Epidemic Relief Organization and WIll County’s Heroin Education Leads to Preventative Solutions, in conjunction with the Southwest Coalition for Substance Abuse Issues.
“Organizations like HERO bring this [issue] to the forefront – not just in Will County but all over the state,” Lang said. “This organization understands that a crisis can lock you in place or a crisis can spur you to action. For all the leaders of this organization, let me say ‘Thank You’ on behalf of the Illinois General Assembly.”