Columbia and Boone County Health and Human Services noted in a news release that there have been 22 suspected or known overdose deaths this year, according to the Columbia Police Department. Half of those deaths have occurred since August.
The Health Department will convene an emergency meeting Tuesday to address the increase in fatal drug overdoses in the community. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at Hickman High School, 1004 N. Providence.
"We think (22 reported overdoses) is probably low, and there's probably even more than that," said Scott Clardy, the assistant director of Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services.
Christopher Sampson, an emergency physician at MU Health Care, said he has noticed an increase in overdose cases in the emergency department within the past year. Most accidental overdoses are caused by opioids, he said.
The main goal of the meeting is to inform the community about drugs being laced with fentanyl, an opioid 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, as well as how to administer Narcan to reverse an overdose.
Clardy said the presence of fentanyl in drugs in Columbia is because it's cheaper to produce counterfeit drugs using fentanyl than the real thing. He said most of Columbia's drug supply comes from Mexico, but the Columbia Police Department has also broken up some counterfeiting operations within the county.
"They look just like (Percocets), but they are not, they're fentanyl and filler," Clardy said. "It's so much more potent".
Drugs laced with fentanyl can include cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, ecstasy and others, Clardy said.
Opioid use disorder can affect a broad demographic.
"It's really not a discriminating disease," Sampson said.
"You have to look at it as a medical disease," he added, noting that there are lots of resources in Missouri to help those affected by opioid use disorder, like the EPIC program. He pointed out that Narcan is available to the public to buy over the counter.
An expert from the Health Department will be at the meeting to demonstrate how to use Narcan to reverse an overdose, and Narcan kits will be available.
"All of this is free of charge. We're not taking anybody's name," Clardy said. "We just want people to come and have that available to them."
