Recent data shows there are fewer prescription drugs being sold on the street in Delaware than in recent years, but it also shows an increase in illicit synthetic opioids.
An analysison drug use in Delaware from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Philadelphia Field Division shows illicit opioids make up more than 40 percent of all drug seizures in the First State.
And the percentage of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl tripled between 2017 and 2018 to make up more than 16 percent of all illicit opioids seized.
The report lists Philadelphia as the main supplier of fentanyl and heroin into Delaware. The drugs are trafficked by organizations in direct contact with Mexican suppliers smuggling drugs across the Southern Border.
Troy Creese is a Peer Support Specialist for Mid-Atlantic Behavioral Health in New Castle County. He says drug trafficking does not seem to have slowed during the pandemic.
“I was falsely optimistic at the beginning of this COVID epidemic that, you know, maybe this will slow down the amount of illicit drugs hitting the streets and that does not seem to be the case,” said Creese. “It doesn’t seem to have had a negative effect on trafficking or distribution at all.”
The report notes instances across the country of the DEA seizing counterfeit prescription drugs containing fentanyl, and points to a 2018 seizure in Delaware of about 14,000 tablets of illicitly-produced oxycodone that were later found to contain fentanyl.
Creese and other providers up and down the state also say they see more instances of relapse since the start of the pandemic.
“We are very worried about certainly the impact that the COVID crisis is having on people and you take that in addition to what this report tells us: the drugs out there are dangerous,” said Delaware Division of Public Health Director Dr. Karyl Rattay. “So if an individual is in recovery and for whatever reason, become extremely stressed and might slip, they may not at all be prepared for what’s out there in the illicit drug supply at this point in time.”
But the report also notes a downtick in prescription opioids seized on the street. It points to Delaware Division of Professional Regulations data that says pharmaceutical opioid prescription rates have decreased each year since 2015.
The state has taken measures in recent years to stop overprescribing, including opioid tax legislation, interventions with physicians who prescribe an above average amount of opioids and improvement to the state prescription monitoring program.
“So that PMP improvement, I can’t really emphasize enough how important and useful and helpful that has been to moving the needle for legitimate prescribing in the right direction—which is usually less and lower doses,” said Dr. John Goodill, chair of the state’s addiction action subcommittee on safe prescribing.
But in 2018 Delaware providers still wrote about nine percent more opioid prescriptions per capita when compared with the national average, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The overdose rate in Delaware has risen steadily for years with 431 overdose deaths reported in 2019. So far this year, the state is reporting 254 suspected overdose deaths.
