NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Reno County Substance Misuse Health Educator Seth Dewey sees improvement on the Reno County Overdose Dashboard when he looks at 2023.
"This is our third year of collection of data, when we started ODMAP and our dashboard. In 2021, we saw 23 overdose fatalities, in 2022, we saw 22, so we saw that reduction," Dewey said. "Right now, we are awaiting still, a couple toxicology reports, is what we've been told by our Reno County death scene investigator, but we're projected to look at potentially 19 or 20, but we're still looking at a reduction."
The number of non-fatal overdoses is up, but Dewey sees that as better reporting.
"It sounds crazy, but this is actually a good thing," Dewey said. "We have some things happening here. We have individuals that are benefitting from the education in our community that's being put out on multiple levels, knowing what to look for in an overdose and also knowing the instructions to call 911, to administer Narcan or Naloxone and things like that."
Though Fentanyl is getting the headlines, that is not the main problem in Reno County, according to the dashboard.
"We're still seeing the main one be methamphetamine," Dewey said. "As we've known in rural America for a long time, methamphetamine has been, a lot of times, the drug of choice in these particular areas. We do see an increase in fentanyl overdoses, but still predominantly, by a large number, methamphetamine still takes the large majority."
Unlike opioid overdoses, which can be reversed by naloxone, there is no medication treatment for methamphetamine overdose. Sleep and food can help counteract some effects of methamphetamine, however.
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