CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — According to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, Texas is experiencing a drug poisoning epidemic as deaths have increased more than 75 percent in the past five years.
However, the Lone Star State ranks as one of the 50 states with the lowest drug overdose mortalities in the nation.
"It's a really wonderful thing when, not that somebody overdosed, but that somebody didn't die," Program Director at the South Texas Substance Abuse Recovery Services Taze Vandever said.
Texas is ranked as the fourth lowest state for drug overdose mortalities.
"Fortunately, Texas has really flooded the streets of Texas with Narcan," Vandever said.
Narcan is a major tool in life saving efforts for extremely deadly drugs like fentanyl.
"The Narcan is an opioid blocker, so what it's going to do is block the opioids temporarily in the person's brain, allowing them to breathe," he said. "Because an overdose, an opioid overdose is basically the opioids have shut down their ability to breathe, and they suffocate and die. This is the antidote to that."
Although the state's overall death rate is lower than the majority of the country, Director of Health and Wellness for Nueces County Dr. Xavier Gonzales says there is still a continuous rise on the number of drug related deaths.
In 2017, the death rate was 9.4 out of 100,000 residents. But in 2021, the rate reached 15.8. Which brings us to where we are at now, with rates up to 18.2.
Gonzales also mentioned that many times, these rates spike in just a matter of days of seeing drug overdose related deaths.
One effort being done in the Coastal Bend is ensuring that the community is educated on fentanyl overdoses.
Narcan can be found in your local pharmacy, so you don't have to be a first responder to save someone from an overdose.
"We provided Narcan and trained close to 1,500 clients since 2020, and we've had at least, documented, at least 75 but I know it's more like over 100 clients, come back and report to us, that they used the Narcan that we gave them to reverse an overdose on somebody that they were with," Vandever said.
To learn more about life saving efforts with drug overdoses, you can find more information here: Medication Management Services in Coastal Bend (stsars.org)