Columbus and other communities are facing a perfect storm of heroin and other opiate addictions.

Sgt. Jay Frederick with the Columbus Police Department says that a variety of factors have acted together to create the current opiate overdose epidemic including pharmaceutical companies need to sell their products, doctors’ changing views on managing pain and decisions to make it easier to obtain some potent painkillers. He referred to an author’s description of a “perfect storm” hitting communities.

Frederick said that the local number of overdoses so far this year have more than doubled over he same time period last year. In January and February last year there were 24 overdose calls, compared to 52 this year. However the number of deaths due to drug overdoses locally have dropped, due to the use of Narcan.

He said Columbus has been hit as hard as other communities, it began carrying Narcan earlier than most, helping save more people.

“We are just a slice of the pie, Columbus is no different than any other community facing the same struggles,” Frederick said.

Frederick said the only way to understand the epidemic is to understand that drugs from heroin to various prescription painkillers, whether natural or synthetic. are all derived from the same source — the opium poppy.

Frederick said that by combining opium-derived painkillers with over-the-counter painkillers like acetaminophen and making them time release, the drug companies were able to move some pills to the less restrictive classification called Schedule III. Which makes them easier to get.

Now those pills can sell for $80 each on the street and police call them Green Devils:

Frederick and Larry Perkinson, the Bartholomew Consolidated schools student assistance coordinator, talked to local Democrats about the drug problem earlier this week.

Frederick suggested the people who would like to know more about the opiates epidemic plan to attend a session to be held in April at The Commons. Sam Quinones, author of “Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic,” will speak along with Dr. Kendall Stewart, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer of the Portsmouth, Ohio Southern Ohio Medical Center.

The forum will be from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. April 19th at the Commons.