Tennessee health officials say the state is beyond the “opioid crisis,” and not in a good way. They’re expanding their sights to include many more deadly drugs by calling it — broadly — an overdose crisis.
Fatal overdoses continue to climb in Tennessee, and most still involve opioids. But it’s no longer conventional prescription painkillers directly to blame. It’s illicit fentanyl, often made in a clandestine lab. And increasingly, victims also have either cocaine or meth in their system, according to data from the Metro Health Department.
Nashville opioid response coordinator Trevor Henderson says the drug combinations reflect a larger concern.
“We sort of have an addictive society,” he says. “If that indeed is true and addiction is the underlying problem, we can’t focus on just one substance. We have to be broader than that.”
More: How Drug Combos Are Making Tennessee’s Opioid Problem Even More Deadly
If focused solely on opioids, health officials might miss all the new instances of weekend drug users who end up overdosing because their cocaine was laced with powerful fentanyl, says Henderson, who reviews each overdose fatality in Davidson County.
Nationally, researchers say there are as many as four separate drug epidemics occurring simultaneously, with regional variations around the country.
Starting in January 2020, Tennessee is changing how it categorizes overdoses in the hospital. No longer will the reportable condition be “opioid drug overdose,” but rather “drug overdose,” as to include stimulants like meth and cocaine, benzodiazepines and muscle relaxers.
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