Every 330 seconds, someone in the United States dies from a drug overdose – that is every five and a half minutes. In 2021, there were nearly 107,000 drug overdose deaths; 80,000 of these overdoses involved opioids.
The drug landscape has changed over the years. As you may have heard, we are all currently fighting against a monster called Fentanyl. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more powerful than heroin, and 100 times more powerful than morphine. A sugar packet-sized amount of fentanyl is enough to kill hundreds of people. This is a real threat to our communities, our residents, and especially our children.
Fentanyl can be combined with any drug: heroin, methamphetamines, cocaine, and counterfeit pills purchased off the street. These drugs have the power to end someone’s life in the blink of an eye.
Between 2019 and 2021, overdose deaths increased among youth aged 14-18; deaths involving illicitly manufactured Fentanyl increased over 182%. Fentanyl is in our community, and we are truly up against a fight.
This is where we can help.
If you are not familiar with Tioga ASAP (Advocacy, Support, And Prevention) we are a coalition of local community members and professionals, working towards the goal of spreading awareness. We believe knowledge is power, and that we can help prevent opioid related deaths and fentanyl poisonings.
Tioga ASAP has an Opioid workgroup, where a group of coalition members specifically focus on how we can help our community and help the community stay educated, as well as reducing deaths related to opioids within Tioga County.
Tioga ASAP’s Opioid Workgroup focuses on sharing information and making resources available.
We are working to install Public Access Narcan Boxes throughout Tioga County to help make Narcan readily available to those in need. The individuals and organizations in our workgroup offer free Narcan training, education relating to counterfeit pills, information on safe medication disposals, and we are working towards offering a Spike Alert program to Tioga County residents, notifying the public of spikes in overdoses in the community. We are here to offer support, education, and we are dedicated to getting this information out in hopes it may save even one life.
On Thursday, Aug. 31, the Tioga ASAP coalition will be holding its annual Overdose Vigil from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Draper Park in Owego. If you are not familiar with what we do, please come check out the organization’s table, and listen to some of the speakers share their stories.
It is a beautiful event memorializing those we have lost and those impacted, while also getting out information to the community for prevention of opioid related deaths.
There is truly power in numbers, and it will take a village to save lives. To learn more about what we do and how we can help, please check us out on Facebook at Tioga ASAP, or visit https://tiogaasap.org/.
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