Erie County, N.Y. (WBEN) - In continued efforts to reduce the amount of drug overdose deaths ensuing throughout Erie County, the county's Department of Health and County Executive Mark Poloncarz has debuted a new "Detect to Protect" awareness campaign.
Noting that the opioid epidemic is not what it was 10 years ago and has transformed into an addiction epidemic, Poloncarz says there has been a drop in deaths in the county from people using purely heroin or prescription drugs. The problem now lies with most black market drugs now being laced with fentanyl, including cocaine.
"If you're buying prescription drugs on the black market, it's very likely there's fentanyl in it. If you're using cocaine, it's very likely that there's fentanyl in it," said Poloncarz during Tuesday's announcement. "We've seen a dramatic increase in the number of individuals who've died who don't even realize or who overdose who don't realize that they actually are addicted to fentanyl by using cocaine because it's been inputted in that substance."
According to Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein, these multimedia, multi-year advertisements were created partnering with Impact Marketing and Communications in Albany, and feature Erie County locals who who have been impacted by overdose epidemic. They include messages that are essential to understanding the scope of the situation locally, such as the disproportionate impact on Black and African Americans residents and the increase in overdose deaths in older age groups.
"We started with radio ads in April to get life saving messages out the door as soon as possible. This paid campaign runs through the end of 2025 but the messages remain available always for our use so that we will always have access to this media and the messaging," said Dr. Burstein.
In addition, Dr. Burstein says a social media toolkit will be made available online, giving community organizations access to the messaging. The county encourages them to share with their networks with messages being reviewed and refreshed regularly.
Poloncarz also notes the campaign will feature targeted social media advertising designed to reach those at the most risk in addition to the radio and print ads throughout the county.
This campaign is one of several initiatives supported by Erie County’s opioid settlement funds. The ECDOH recently announced $5.9 million in settlement funding awards to 19 agencies with projects that align with settlement priorities.
The next Erie County Overdose Prevention Task Force meeting is on Aug. 5 at 10 a.m. ET at the Erie County Emergency and Training Operations Center at 3359 Broadway. Five workgroups will report on current initiatives and the County will share recent data.
"If you use cocaine, you better be using fentanyl test strips because there are people in our community in the last week to two weeks that do not use any other drug and some of those people are dead," said Poloncarz.
"Contact us, we'll provide you free fentanyl test strips and Naloxone . Never use alone, and if you think your drugs are safe, they're not."
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