>> Opioid epidemic is the greatest existential crisis that this state he's faced since the end of the 19th century.

A grim assessment of Kentucky's drug problem.

But what can be done to fix it?

>> In and it's about protecting the entire community.

>> How Esto County's health department is helping people struggling with drug addiction and keeping everyone safe.

the drone starting when I was.

9 years old locally.

But today Anthony is sober and private.

We'll tell you how he got clean.

After decades of addiction.

>> Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KTM down for Kentucky Productions, Leonard Press Endowment for Public Affairs and the KET Millennium Fund.

♪ ♪ ♪ >> Good evening and welcome to a special episode of Kentucky edition.

I'm Casey Parker Bell filling in for Renee Shaw.

Tonight we focus on the public health crisis of substance abuse last year.

Drug overdoses kill more than 2100 people in Kentucky.

That's down 5% from the year before the first decrease since 2018.

Also positive side.

It still means more than 2000 Kentuckians lost their lives to preventable disease.

In July, a panel of policymakers, drug recovery advocates and treatment providers were on hand for disrupting addiction Akt Forum live here on KET.

Our panel talked about the problem, new trends.

The state's response and what needs to be done to successfully fight this problem and save more lives.

Brian Hubbard is the executive director and chair of the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission.

He didn't mince words about the seriousness of Kentucky's drug crisis.

Let's begin with the notion and the concrete reality that the opioid epidemic is the greatest existential crisis that this state he's faced.

>> Since the end of the 19th century after the broadcast and did our panel took questions from the audience.

One of the questions is what's being done to place addicts in treatment instead of jail.

>> I was curious if there is something even maybe in the legislation, sure about decriminalizing attic because we do and that putting them in jail and a cell is is not.

>> The place where he should be withdrawing from.

So is there something that we can do to decriminalize attics?

>> Well, I I can take part of one initiative that we're working on right now is we've started the Kentucky Judicial Commission on Mental Health and addiction.

And it's looking at a sequential intercept model really needs individuals where they are in there active drug use, perhaps and where they're intersecting with the criminal justice system.

So the intent is not to incarcerate individuals but to get them treatment.

And we do have many jails that have treatment in the jail.

I know in in our area in Kenton County, we have a really a national model of treatment in jail.

So the you know, if an individual involved in the criminal justice system, we still want to get them help.

But of course, the the objective is to help them before they're ever justice involved.

>> When the term diversion is used.

That's exactly what we're trying to get it right.

It is.

You're diverting from jail prison.

Whatever to treatment.

So Senate bill, 90, what we're trying to do with mobile crisis, that kind of diversion pre post arrest.

That is to try to get folks.

Get out of the jails and into the health system.

>> The epidemic has affected families and entire communities through several generations.

Madison County Coroner Jimmy Kerr Neilson spoke about the devastating toll the epidemic has had on his community and how it is made a difficult job, even harder for him and many other corners around the state.

>> 3 o'clock in the morning.

They know when they look outside and see a marked police unit in myself sitting there with a corner shirt on that.

You know, we didn't stop by just to chat.

I actually had one mother.

He met me at the door one day and told me that she had dreamed of me being because of the the issues that they have had have one family ready and 3 sons.

And different times wipe the whole family out.

So that's difficult.

It can't be taught.

You know, you just have to learn from experience.

You know it.

It's everything from the problem.

Actually, people closing the door in your face or just dropping out right there on the spot.

Madison County reported 59 overdose deaths in 2020.

>> Corneal son says the numbers spiked to 75 in 2021.

And then drop slightly to 16.

I'm in 2022, he says reported deaths are at 44 as of late July 2023, on track for another increase.

Cornell, some added that fentanyl is involved in more than 90% of the overdose deaths in Madison County.

And that's a trend throughout the state of more than 2100 killed by drug overdoses last year in Kentucky.

More than 72% died from fentanyl during the form of an interim executive director with the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy pointed out there's another problem along with fentanyl.

>> In addition to the deadly fentanyl do to get the numbers that we do have one problem more with the federal and that was I was a problem.

>> And xylazine is what so I was in this and we'll try questions about Trump's actions.

So for some cases, it's being put the drugs south of the border of the cartels.

But in some cases, it's being added here in our state.

It's really a readable or cause us to redouble our efforts and look for new ways.

There are times he test drove will be looking at but I can't believe it's it's just unbelievable that that was a deadly enough that we have to add something else to it.

>> Some people end up taking fentanyl without knowing it after the live program was over during a question and answer session with our studio audience.

We talked about the value of fentanyl test strips to alert people when fentanyl is presented in a drug.

>> Yes, House bill 3.53 known as the fentanyl test strip bill and the goal of that was simply to allow individuals to test for the presence of fentanyl in their product.

It also decriminalized the fentanyl test strips, pulled that that out of the the paraphernalia statute.

And so, you know that really the goal is to allow individuals to test their drugs for the presence of deadly fentanyl.

it also implemented and education and awareness campaign.

And so it's a it really focuses on the presence of fentanyl and hopefully changing behaviors.

We know that if if an individual is going to take, it's going to pause long enough to think about what they're ingesting.

Then they perhaps on the road to thinking about treatment and and their drug use.

>> It's it's a really important piece of thank When we saw we saw some years where we're really doing some impressive work on bringing overdosed, that's down and then thought no hit.

>> And and now you can see 89 90% of overdose deaths somewhere in that neighborhood.

>> Involved fentanyl and folks who may not even know that they're taking it.

So that can test strip piece, which used to be a paraffin, Ilya issue.

Is really important.

And I think it's going to impact survival rates long-term.

One vital tool in the battle against overdose deaths is naloxone.

>> The overdose reversal drug known most commonly by its brand name Narcan spin, used to save lives for decades, but it's only in the past 10 years or so.

The government agencies has started to widely distribute the drug as an emergency treatment.

Erik Friedlander, secretary of the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services said it's helped turn the tide on overdose deaths.

Nor can has had such a big impact.

And we focus on prevention and harm reduction.

I'm sure I know that one hopefully part of the decline.

And we've talked about this with child abuse and neglect.

One year does not a trend.

Make, but hopefully that Narcan distribution has helped people survive.

And it's you can't get to treatment if you're dead right?

You can't turn your life around.

If you're seeing the corner.

All right.

So these are the things that we have to do to KET people alive to get to treatment, to get to the point where they can turn their lives around.

Take get to have hope.

That all our communities working together can help lift them up.

Free later went on to say the Cabinet is leading a statewide effort to educate the public about Narcans effectiveness where to get it and how to use it.

Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration approved an over-the-counter naloxone spray.

The drug began appearing in stores in September.

According to federal data, 9 out of 10 Kentuckians with substance use disorder going treated.

Panel member Doctor Devon Dollar a primary care and addiction medicine physician at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine gave some of the common reasons why those who need treatment often don't get it.

I think there's huge challenges with access and still stigma related to the evidence-based treatments that we have for addiction.

>> I see this every day coming into and often I sit down with my patients tonight, try to understand what they're going through.

And I think we understand that perspective.

We understand why these medications work, why they save lives.

Many of my patients explain to me that in active addiction that feels like their brain has been Right?

And there's only one destination in mind it's to obtain that substance to get out of withdrawal.

And when you it takes incredible courage to say I've had enough.

So what we need to do is give patients the tools and the skills, not just 2.

>> Take back ownership and be back in that pilot's chair.

>> But to really be able to to aim their destination towards long-term recovery medications for opioid use disorder up north, the north suboxone and methadone.

It's sort of like having a copilot to navigate that early turbulence of withdrawal and also to help KET the hijacker out of the pilot's chair as well.

I don't have any medication.

It for heart failure for diabetes.

That's as effective in terms of reducing death.

As people nor thien and methadone.

50% drop in mortality.

If I'm able to get folks started on that.

But again, the barriers, that access point.

And that's why I think we see in Eastern Kentucky the challenges of getting folks into treatment and staying in treatment.

>> But Doctor Tiller, there are many who say that you're trading one addiction for another with Suboxone and methadone and people north.

And what do you say to those who have that criticism?

>> Yeah, I I think the reason that if we understand what's happening in we understand it as a chronic disease of the brain that has a great prognosis with effective treatment.

We would never say to a patient with diabetes that using insulin is trading one drug for another, right?

So why do we do that for addiction?

And I think fundamentally, it's this misunderstanding that it's just a choice that there aren't genetics involved, that there isn't trauma involved.

>> Transportation is another barrier to treatment.

Panel members were asked by one audience member what was being done to improve access to transportation and other services.

>> Transportation is an issue as you talked about what's happening in eastern Kentucky, even in urban Louisville, even in Lexington, access to services cannot happen.

If we don't do something about the transportation and when people being able to have more mobile responses and things like that, are any of you working on even in the funding room of providing more support around transportation services you right into a structured Freelander director hovered.

I traveled around the state for the little bit.

That was kicking off.

>> Transportation came up at every city.

We missed it that along with a cut recovery I want to thank my office has done is great.

It's money to the Department of Corrections and we should anybody who's on probation, parole and the drive to a job appointment to a treatment appointment?

We'll provide that.

We've expanded that to the Department for public advocacy in their 70% of the workers.

A lot of times they can get a judge to agree to that opportunity to treatment.

We have to get them there.

But we have made things hopefully easier in terms of being able to >> access that transportation.

What we've done is we've we used to say you couldn't use it for methadone treatments.

We've taken that away.

We used to say if there was a car somewhere in the that that you couldn't access to transportation pieces, what of someone's going to a job?

But if the car doesn't work.

So there we have time to make access a really important point for what we do.

We partnered with the General Assembly on.

I like that one.

And it goes out to our our first responder.

That tide goes out instead of forcing them to take somebody to hospital.

>> We are now working on allowing them to maybe do a little treat them where they are.

If they have that skill set.

>> And then as well as not necessarily taking somebody to a hospital but taking somebody to treatment.

More than half of Kentucky's counties now have syringe service programs for intravenous drug users.

>> The programs are part health Department's efforts to curb the impact of drug use that still county health department just started offering a syringe service programs through its mobile clinic.

We visited one of the sites and spoke with health care workers who said harm reduction programs are not designed to enable drug addicts, but instead to make communities safer.

>> We work out of it.

So gives us a little privacy for everyone.

We offered syringe exchange.

Obviously we do HIV and Hep C testing.

We offer when care education as well as when care kids.

We referrals to treatment for hip.

Say if they are hit the positive.

>> We hear all the time.

A lot of they need Narcan.

You know, we need to just let people that they've used as they did this in sales.

And it's sad.

It's really sad to hear people say that because these are people who they didn't choose to be an addict.

The harm reduction program is not to KET someone from being or using drugs.

>> It's to protect the community and that means to protect the drug users as well as other people in the community.

In a way to do that is given them clean needles.

So they're not sharing.

They're not sharing in spreading diseases.

And you throw away and they do get rid of it.

Then somebody else doesn't get it.

It doesn't harm just in any citizen.

You know, we've had participants tell us that they've used the same needle for months and they sharpen it on concrete or brick walls or, >> you know, they drop water out of mud holes because they can't get access to clean water.

So, you know, to me if we can stop that from occurring, that's the main thing hepatitis can live on the surfaces for over 30 days.

So the you stepping on a NATO that's been used multiple times.

You getting hip say is very high.

But you stepping on a NATO that's been used one time.

Your chances of getting Hep C is very low.

So you look at those statistics and it makes more sense.

But it's hard to get people to understand that sometimes we've.

Head to head to come to terms with it at first, too.

You know, because we thought long and hard about it.

But in in and it's about protecting the entire community, not just to providing.

>> We're not enabling people.

We're not encouraging it.

People are using whether we give them clean needles or not.

And so we have to do something that will at least help protect everybody else and them as well.

And this is just the best way that we found that we can do that.

>> We also offer a treatment referrals for rehab.

Things like that if they're interested and when they're ready for rehab to remember, these are people.

That, you know, they're all crying out for help in some way or another.

They're all very thankful.

They're very appreciative of what we do every time they come.

Anybody that comes the sun, you know.

>> Thank you for doing the U.S..

Thank you for thinking of us.

Thank you for treating us like humans.

Sometimes you just want to give them a hug before they leave.

And sometimes we do, you know, because they come and tell us their stories.

And, you know, it's just it's hard not to want to live on a Monday.

You know, when you hear that they get shunned by people in the community because they know the safe, then wrong.

They know they've done things in the community.

That's probably not the best.

But they're still human beings.

In the end, they're still people that can be lived in need to be left.

And when you hear him say you're the only person that cares about this, that's sad.

It's really sad to may.

If we have 100 participants in one goes to rehab, that's worth it.

To me.

>> So, you know, the goal with all of this is definitely stop the spread of diseases, but also to get people help.

And if we can do that, then I feel like we can go home with good conscience in and say that we did our job.

>> The mobile clinic also began offering fentanyl testing strips after new law went into effect last month.

Decriminalizing the tests.

Recovery is possible.

And one man's journey shows us just that can go to know works for the ACLU of Kentucky as a policy strategist as pasta.

That position was far from linear.

He began using substances at a young age and this past summer, I had the opportunity to speak to who is now 7 years into recovery and working to change perceptions and policy to help others on the same course.

>> The war on drugs is a failed war.

It is a war really on people and in particular black and brown people.

We have 50 years of the war on drugs.

And yet here we sit today talking about addiction and recovery.

It's not working.

>> Kong are juggling a has a personal relationship with the war on drugs.

He's in his 7th year in recovery.

>> When I was in my addiction.

I'm not I wasn't nor have I ever been an enemy combatant of the Commonwealth for this nation.

I was a sick person trying to get well, I found my medicine and recovery.

>> Congo says his relationship with drugs and alcohol began young and 13 and that it spiraled out of control after taking a drop in Louisville at the county attorney's office.

While I was here at the county attorney by the action really expired out of control I eventually became I got arrested.

Am I fired myself from this job and things really spiraled out of control.

I was on the news was on the newspaper.

After that I distance myself from my family and my friends.

>> And I ended up, you know, my Dixon got worse to heroin.

And Matt.

>> His addiction led to a free fall of this professional queer and his personal life.

He was suspended from the bar.

He separated himself from family and friends.

He's spent time homeless.

>> The system gave me incarceration and fines and fees and I couldn't pay what I needed.

I need a mental health that I needed a detox bed.

I needed to go to recovery.

Now.

Congo can see what people in recovery need.

You know, we have it set in jail cell for someone, but we don't have detox bed mental health that that's what we need.

This is a health crisis.

Not a criminal legal crisis.

Congo got help through his brother who is also in recovery.

Then he found the bad and the help he needed the healing place.

Eventually, though, I found my way to 10th in market the healing place.

I went to their long-term recovery program.

Was there for about 9 months and once over the community, his community pick them up and helped him get a job.

You know, one of the great things about this community especially the legal community, had some friends.

And when they found out I was getting sober, they're like, hey, I got a job for you.

I was able to find work, got a license back.

I was practicing law for a little bit.

And then a job opened up at the ACLU of Kentucky.

And so eventually move there.

Now come goes working to help others like himself struggling with addiction.

But looking for help.

>> As a policy analyst at the ACLU of Kentucky, Congo was working to get legislation passed.

That will change the past for people who live similar experiences that need help just like him.

>> I have been through some things.

Addiction took everything from me and recovery.

He's giving it all back.

Plus more.

For Kentucky edition.

I'm Casey Parker Bell.

Many organizations throughout the state offer short and long-term counseling and support services to help those with addiction.

>> In their habit permanently and Cain skills help with employment and self-improvement.

Our Laura Rogers shares more on a treatment center that works to set up clients for lifelong success.

>> Anthony Bennett is maintenance crew leader Amy Branum as the receptionist at the Shelley Center location of Isaiah House in Harrisburg.

But they're not just hard-working staff.

>> What would the over 20 times?

>> Things weren't going very well at all.

And I had 2 children that needed their mom.

They are success.

Stories of addiction recovery.

>> Well, hopefully this for failing I come from a lot of abuse.

It started my lifestyle of the drugs and everything.

>> I was raised in church my whole life.

And was raised to be a good girl and did all the right things.

But life let me cricket past their addiction origin.

Stories are different, but their recovery is similar.

>> As it began with residential treatment here at Isaiah House.

>> It back to the second time.

Second time for one.

>> And I was going to die.

I was going to die because it was either taken extreme core.

I wasn't going to live anymore.

>> As house is a nonprofit, faith-based addiction treatment center with soon to be 8 campuses in Kentucky.

>> Very individualized for that particular client based on use history based on treatment, history.

There's a lot of things that go into kind of that decision on what that client me.

>> It is a phased treatment program that provides both short-term and long-term care.

Typical day in treatment will consist of clinical groups, individuals with your therapist peer support.

>> And peer support is a really unique and great service where you're talking to people who have been and sobriety.

They've had the certification.

Now they've been where that person is.

>> Like Bennett and Branum, many of the nearly 500 employees have been through the program.

>> And that people can reach out to here.

They will never give up on always answer the phone and give you the tools, all the tools in that shooting to be a productive citizens in society.

>> When I was a client just watching the staff there and hearing their stories about how they survived and how they come out.

On the other end of that.

It gave me hope it was inspiring.

I really truly wish to be that for somebody else.

>> Many of our managers directors, we even have executive staff who were once clients as a house.

So they are wonderful role models for new people coming in.

>> Crowd says the center aims to offer a, quote, mind body and soul approach to recovery.

And they partner with Kentucky High Schools, colleges and universities to help clients.

>> Further their education at president going into the fall.

We have over 100 of our clients who are going to be getting degrees or certifications.

>> Isaiah House also works to break the cycle of addiction, but addressing the root cause, the disease of addiction is a cycle and we have to figure out what keeps someone and that cycle of addiction.

>> And a lot of times it is because they have co-occurring mental health disorders, whether that be past trauma, depression, anxiety may gaze says it is often stigma that keeps people from seeking treatment.

But she hopes as that is addressed.

>> More people will get the help that they need to turn their lives around.

The great thing about it is that we have a lot of great services in the state of Kentucky, not just as a house but other services too.

>> Who's provided that to help us fight this epidemic.

>> We'll cover.

Ian is a lifelong endeavor.

And so you must continually evaluate what you're doing.

You must have someone who's going to hold you accountable.

And you've got to constantly work to prove yourself.

Will happen, will happen.

Just stay strong.

Don't give Well for your show before he could making way out at the move for your show.

>> We're Kentucky edition.

I'm Laura Rogers.

>> You can watch our panel discussion, disrupting addiction akt form online now.

Okay.

E T Dot Org.

We hope you'll join us again tomorrow night at 6.30, stern Five-thirty Central for Kentucky Edition we inform connect and inspire subscribe to our weekly Kentucky Edition email newsletter and watch full episodes and clips a K E T Dot Org.

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I'm Casey Parker Bell.

Thanks for joining us.

Have a great night and taken care.

♪ ♪ ♪