Fentanyl-related statistics tell grim tale in Tri-Cities area

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — Whether the numbers reflect drug seizures by law enforcement or overdose deaths and hospital visits, the trajectory of fentanyl’s impact shot upward from 2019 through 2021 — and it hasn’t pulled back since.

Asked whether Northeast Tennessee’s fentanyl problem has plateaued yet, Sullivan County General Sessions Judge James Goodwin provided a grim anecdote.

“I’ve dismissed more cases in the last year-and-a-half because the defendants are deceased, and those orders are coming at an increasing number,” Goodwin said. He was referring to people who die of an overdose before their court date — be it for theft, probation violation, or any other offense — makes it to the docket.

“So I don’t think we’ve hit the plateau yet and … I would say fentanyl is somehow connected to at least 85 to 90% of our cases in some way,” Goodwin said. “Either seeking drugs, using drugs, dealing drugs — the thefts that go along with drug use, the burglaries, all that.”

News Channel 11 analyzed data from the Tennessee (TDH) and Virginia (VDH) departments of health and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) dating back to 2018. The data show a more than fourfold increase in fentanyl overdose deaths between 2019 and 2021 across News Channel 11’s primary viewing area of 16 Tennessee and Virginia counties.

In Northeast Tennessee, meanwhile, drug seizures sent from Northeast Tennessee to the TBI crime lab grew tenfold from 2019 to the first eight months of this year.

OD deaths create abyss for families, communities

The impact of a fentanyl overdose can’t be overstated, even if the person survives. They’ve had a brush with death, and the reality that they’re toying with a substance that could kill them is undeniable. Friends have helped save them with Naloxone, or they’ve stressed hospital emergency departments.

But when someone dies, the crater that a survived overdose leaves becomes an abyss. A child, a parent, a coworker is gone forever. From 2018 through 2022, that happened 495 in Northeast Tennessee and far Southwest Virginia.

In 2018, that impact happened somewhere in this region once a week. In 2019, that number was almost exactly the same, as the total number of overdose deaths rose from 51 to 52.

Then came a cocktail of circumstances that sent the numbers soaring. The drug was becoming widely available. In 2019, 32 of the drug seizures Northeast Tennessee authorities sent to the TBI contained fentanyl. That number nearly tripled, to 86, in 2020.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic was sending Americans into isolation, which can exacerbate mental health and substance abuse issues.

The number of families and friends confronting the abyss of a loved one’s death skyrocketed. In 2020, it doubled from one a week to two, with a total of 107 deaths that year.

The trend didn’t let up in 2021. With the pandemic still raging, the number of fentanyl seizures coming from Northeast Tennessee to the TBI crime lab nearly doubled, to 159. Three workdays a week, in other words, a package containing fentanyl came from Northeast Tennessee authorities to the TBI — five times more than two years earlier.

The death rate kept pace. Just over four times a week — 216 times — someone in the region ingested fentanyl, sometimes knowingly, sometimes mixed into other drugs, and died.

The fentanyl overdose death rate had quadrupled in just two years.

Since then, the available data show a leveling off of deaths in the region. The 2022 total of 220 deaths was just 2% higher than the 216 recorded in 2021.

Southwest Virginia’s 2023 death total of 66 marked a second straight year of decline from a peak of 77 in 2021 — but what went up hasn’t come down nearly as rapidly.

Tennessee hasn’t reported 2023 overdose deaths yet, but Northeast Tennessee’s total rose by just 7% in 2022, from 139 to 149, after more than doubling in 2021 and tripling in 2020 from 2019’s figure.

Hospital visits involving non-heroin opioid overdoses (mostly fentanyl) haven’t risen quite as fast in Tennessee as deaths have.

While only statewide data is available, it shows that from 2018 to 2021 those encounters didn’t quite double, increasing 74% from 4,039 to 7,048.

While still a major increase by any standard, it pales in comparison to the increase in overdose deaths. Those jumped by nearly five times in Northeast Tennessee and rose almost four times statewide.

Judge Goodwin may not be able to rattle those statistics off the top of his head, but he sees the evidence of them firsthand.

“The main thing that I’ve seen are the number of orders that I get where the state’s asking me to dismiss a case because the defendant’s deceased,” Goodwin said. “I’ll bet the vast majority of those are because of fentanyl overdoses.”

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