According to a new study from the Health Statistic Center of West Virginia, overdose deaths related to methamphetamine have increased by 500 percent in just four short years.
In fact, a record-number 129 people have passed from overdoses in 2017 - and that number is expected to climb through the holiday season.
As the late American-German poet, Charles Bukowski once said, “My dear, Find what you love and let it kill you.” It seems as some West Virginians have taken it to heart...
Chad Napier, prevention officer with the Appalachian High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area said, about half the meth overdoses involve fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that remains the leading cause of drug overdoses in the state. Napier further said, addicts are using meth mixed with fentanyl, sometimes unknowingly, which is the reason for the overdose surge.
In November, we highlighted how 60.1% of heroin tested by authorities in Canada for the 2017 period contained fentanyl. We also noted, cocaine and methamphetamine saw a noticeable surge as well. The situation in Canada is critical with one funeral home in Vancouver warning of “too many bodies.”
As we’ve pointed out in the article, fentanyl is being shipped from China into Canada, then distributed across North America. In West Virginia’s case, meth dealers have graduated from their Breaking Bad recreational vehicles— to now demanding super meth from extravagant laboratories in Mexico.
So far, Kanawha and Cabell counties in West Virginia have been hit the hardest in meth-related overdoses. About thirty Kanawha residents and twenty eight in Cabell have died with the epidemic spreading to other counties such as Raleigh and Wood.
“A lot of these people don’t know what they’re getting,” Napier said.
“We’re seeing the meth cut with fentanyl, so that’s increasing the meth [overdose] numbers, I believe.”
The Health Statistic Center of West Virginia said, meth-related overdoses across the state have dramatically increased over the past four years from 21 in 2014, 49 in 2015, 107 in 2016 to 129 deaths so far in 2017.
Dr. Rahul Gupta, state health commissioner warned, residents are mixing meth and opioids producing a dangerous concoction that could kill anyone who comes in contact with it. The journey of the Mexican-made meth started in the southern states and has now spread to the east.
“We’re seeing a lot more meth, and it’s a different kind of meth than we were seeing five or six years ago,” Gupta said.
“There’s a push from the cartels to get these drugs out there.”
So it seems, Mexican drug cartels have seen one too many episodes of Breaking Bad, as they attempt to empire build across the United States killing what’s left of America’s middle class through a powerful concoction of meth and synthetic opioids.