In Kentucky’s ongoing fight against drug addiction, the numbers look promising: For the third straight year, overdose deaths in the commonwealth have declined, dropping from a historic high of 2,257 in 2021 to 1,410 in 2024.
“I am thankful that more Kentuckians are alive and in recovery today and that fewer families are grieving this year than in any year since at least 2018,” said Gov. Andy Beshear earlier this month at the release of the state’s Drug Overdose Fatality Report.
For the first time, the state saw a decrease in overdose deaths among Black Kentuckians. In fact, every demographic saw a decline last year except among the elderly ages 75 - 84.
The synthetic opioid fentanyl continues to be a significant problem in the commonwealth, contributing to more than 62 percent of drug fatalities. Methamphetamine was present in half of overdose deaths.
“An epidemic that arose in our time, we should be able to defeat in our time,” said Beshear. “This is not something we should leave for our kids and grandkids.”
As part of KET’s continuing coverage of the drug crisis, Kentucky Tonight reported from the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit held in late April in Nashville. The conference is an outgrowth of Operate UNITE, a non-profit organization founded in 2003 by Congressman Hal Rogers (KY-5) to fight drug abuse in southeastern Kentucky.
Operation UNITE President and CEO Tom Vicini says the group started with a heavy emphasis on law enforcement, with some 40 detectives working to get drugs off the streets and close clinics that illegally prescribed pain pills.
“It was just wide open. People were selling drugs openly without much consequence,” says Vicini. “There was a lot of corruption going on, and people making a lot of money real fast.”
The organization also took the unprecedented step of paying the costs for addiction treatment for those who wanted to get clean. Vicini says at that time neither Medicaid nor private insurance covered treatment services, so the funds from Operation UNITE were the only way many people could afford the help they needed.
The final piece of the puzzle for UNITE was prevention and education programs targeted to the needs of specific communities in Appalachian Kentucky. Today, Vicini says the group has evidence-based prevention efforts operating in local schools nearly every day. He says education is critical to stopping the cycle of addiction.
“A lot of these kids in southeastern Kentucky and across the state of Kentucky live lives of chaos, they don’t know anything but the drug problem in their community. That’s all they’ve ever seen so they’re not educated as to a better way of life,” says Vicini. “I want these kids to know that we’re there for them and we’ll provide them every resource we can to have a good life.”
State Programs Fighting Drug Addiction
Despite more prevention efforts and additional treatment beds, Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman says the drug epidemic remains the greatest threat facing families and children in the commonwealth. He says the challenge now is communicating that anyone, whether an addict or not, can die from taking a single pill if it happens to be laced with deadly fentanyl.
“Unless that pill comes from your physician and you’re taking it as prescribed, you are playing Russian roulette with your life,” says the attorney general.
In February, Coleman’s office launched the Better Without It campaign, a statewide prevention effort that will use social media platforms and high-profile student-athletes from the Universities of Kentucky and Louisville to deliver positive messages to youth about staying drug-free.
“The data says we have to give kids agency, that they’re smart and they listen to social media influencers and their peers,” says Coleman. “So why not leverage this... to get a positively driven message.”
Coleman says the idea came from a similar program in Fort Lauderdale and Broward County, Fla. He says he hopes to find influencers in every part of the state who can deliver messages that will best resonate in their communities. He says Better Without It will be funded not with tax dollars but with money from Kentucky’s share of the national opioid settlement against drug makers and pharmacies.
“Those that brought this crisis here are paying for it,” says Coleman
While he applauds the fact that Kentucky now has more addiction treatment beds per capita than any other state, the attorney general says he wants to ensure that clients at rehabilitation facilities receive effective treatment without fraud. He says he also wants to promote “zealous collaboration” among law enforcement agencies, public health officials, educators, the business community, and others in the fight against illicit drugs.
Once such collaborative effort is the Recovery Ready Communities Certification Program. A partnership between the state, Volunteers of America Mid-States, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, and others, the program helps communities evaluate and enhance their drug intervention and treatment efforts
Van Ingram, executive director of the Kentucky office of Drug Control Policy, says 21 communities across the state have already been certified and another four will be approved in the coming weeks. He says the stigma long attached to those with a substance use disorder or who are in recovery continues to decline.
“I think the biggest difference I’ve see in little towns and cities and suburbs all across Kentucky is a willingness on the part of people to accept people who are in recovery and to invest in them,” says Ingram. “That’s what I think is going to make a difference,” says Ingram.
In addition to more treatment beds per capita, Ingram says Kentucky also leads the nation in the number of syringe service programs (SSP). These initiatives, also known as needle exchange programs, provide sterile syringes to drug users for free as well as educate them about safe drug use and how to prevent transmission of diseases like hepatitis and HIV. Ingram says there are now more than 80 such programs across the commonwealth.
“People aren’t judged in those programs, they’re not lectured in those programs, they’re valued,” says Ingram. “People are five times more likely to get into treatment if they are participating in a SSP, we know that rates of infectious diseases declines when people use a SSP.”
Intervention Efforts at the Community Level
Across the commonwealth, treatment providers, non-profit groups, law enforcement, and concerned citizens are partnering on a range of traditional and innovative solutions to the state’s drug crisis.
In far western Kentucky, Lifeline Recovery Center of Paducah offers faith-based residential treatment services at a 46-acre men’s campus in Ballard County. A new women’s campus is set to open in the next year.
“This is something that is a bridge to get them from their addiction to healing, and from healing then out in the workplace, so when they leave here, they’re employed, they have their purpose in life again,” says Steve Powless, board chairman at Lifeline.
Clients at Lifeline pay $3,000 out of pocket for long-term treatment including housing and meals, but much of that is covered by donations to the non-profit organization. Unlike some treatment programs that last a month, clients spend nine months to a year at Lifeline, which includes counseling and group therapy as well as classes on resume writing and job interviewing.
“When you’re thinking of individuals that have been in addiction 10, 15, 20 years and they try to go through a 28-day program, sometimes it’s just enough to open up all of those wounds but not really address the issue,” says Lifeline Executive Director Ashley Miller, who got treatment at Lifeline in 2013 and has now worked for the organization for a decade.
Committing to residential treatment or travelling to recovery meetings may not be feasible for people who lack transportation or live in rural areas. The company Groups Recover Together serves those individuals with medication assisted treatment along with group therapy sessions and life support services delivered in person or online.
“It doesn’t matter where you’re at physically, geographically, emotionally, we will come to you,” says clinical supervisor Ashley Metzger. “We will meet you where you’re at and help you get to where you want to be.”
Each virtual group session includes 10 to 15 individuals in recovery along with three staff members who guide their work.
“The virtual sessions (are) just really nice,” says Heather Halsell, who is a member of one of the groups. “Getting on the call makes it really easy… All you have to do is pick up your phone and you can be comfortable wherever you are.”
Drug withdrawal is often a complicated and difficult part of the recovery journey, but jailers at the Scott County Detention Center in Georgetown are piloting a new treatment that may help alleviate many of those symptoms. Using a small unit called a NET Device, inmates with an addiction can self-administer low-level electrical pulses via electrodes attached behind their ears. The stimulation helps minimize drug cravings and withdrawal symptoms in about half the people who use it.
“I’ve been on heroin and everything else for 45 years,” says Mark Harrell, an inmate in the program. “Since I’ve been on (the NET Device), I haven’t thought about it, I don’t wake up with the cravings.”
Jailer Derran Broyles says use of the NET Device is combined with rehabilitation services to help get the inmates through the recovery process.
“We want to positively impact them so that when they leave here, they have the best opportunity to get out and be on a different path than what they were on when they got arrested and brought to jail,” says Broyles.
Finally, in Oldham County, the non-profit Operation Parent helps parents talk to their children about drug abuse and other crucial issues. The group has distributed nearly 500,000 handbooks that give adults tips for facilitating these conversations.
“These topics shouldn’t be taboo,” says Operation Parent Executive Director Darrell Bramer. “This should just be normal conversation, and the earlier you start that, the more easily that is to be had.”
Operation Parent provides parents and educators with messages tailored for children of different ages, ranging from how to improve impulse control to learning how drug use can affect the brain.
“Prevention works if it is done consistently and over the developmental lifespan of a child,” says Crystal Collier, a prevention research and therapist based in Houston.
Watch part one of Kentucky Tonight’s coverage from the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit.
Additional coverage of the conference is available here.
