ASHLAND — Fentanyl and meth — and community — were topics of discussion with a national bestselling author and local reporters Monday.
The virtual chat was part of a series Sam Quinones had with people around Ashland — ahead of the Ashland Mental Health and Recovery Board’s annual conference held at Ashland University’s convocation center on March 30.
Quinones, a longtime journalist and former LA Times reporter, wrote “The Least of Us: True Tales Of America And Hope In The Time Of Fentanyl And Meth.” The 432-page book was published Nov. 2 as a follow up to “Dreamland,” another book aimed at opioid addiction.
During the hourlong conversation, Quinones touched on the transition from street heroin to methamphetamines, his view on the community’s role in curbing drug overdoses, so-called safe consumption sites and his reaction to criticism on his reporting.
Quinones said heroin, once a pervasive drug wreaking havoc to those addicted to it, is on its way off the streets. In its place, he said, is fentanyl and meth.
The reason for that is because of the synthetic drugs’ cheapness to produce, which has led to a saturation in underground markets across America.
“That’s why we’re seeing fentanyl so prevalent in everything,” he said. “It’s mixed in everything.”
Local data is lacking, but numbers of fatal drug overdoses nationally and statewide have skyrocketed in recent years.
From March 2020 to March 2021, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention reported 96,779 deaths across the U.S. In Ohio, that number was 5,491. Both statistics represent around a 30-percent increase from the year prior.
The number of felony cases handled by the Ashland Prosecutor’s office offers a glimpse into Ashland’s dealings with addiction. The office’s felony caseload has nearly doubled over the span of seven years and the county saw its largest annual amount of overdose deaths in 2021, according to prosecutor Chris Tunnell.
Tunnell said his office filed nearly 300 felony cases in 2021 and saw more than 50 overdoses in the same year.
The solution to this problem?
Well, like many problems, it’s complex — but Quinones offered the answer, or at least part of it — within community. In “The Least of Us,” Quinones wrote about Portsmouth, Ohio, a town of around 20,000 that is working through the woes of addiction by creating new ways of gathering to foster a greater sense of community.
“There’s a lot of small, but earnest, efforts going on (in Portsmouth) to repair community, to bring people together … it’s happening on a very small scale,” he said, pointing to the founding of two new cafes in town and a downtown beautification effort.
David Ross, executive director of Ashland Mental Health and Recovery Board, pointed to Ashland leaders such as Mayor Matt Miller as examples of efforts to bring people together.
“There’s a protective factor in community,” he said.
Quinones also offered opinions on different approaches to solving the issue.
Recovery pods
Quinones talked about a jail in Kenton County, Kentucky that created “recovery pods” for substance-addicted inmates. The program creates a path to its local nonprofit, which provides treatment, recovery services and sets up inmates with health insurance.
“You begin to build a community sense of what’s necessary by working on people in the jail,” he said, “but you’ve got to get them off the street and someplace where they can’t leave.”
Safe consumption sites
A safe consumption site, or supervised consumption service, is a location where addicts can use illicit drugs under the supervision of professionals — an effort seen in larger metropolitan areas such as New York City, Europe and Canada.
When asked about his views on such consumption sites, Quinones said, “In general, we’re not in a position to say no to anything right now.”
However, the measure of success at such places, which often also administers the overdose-reversing drug Narcan, should be on how many people get into recovery as a result.
“If you have high revival numbers and a low rate of people getting into treatment … you’re not really doing much. The longer you use, you’re very likely going to die,” he said.
Quinones’ response to criticism
Parts of Quinones’ work has been met with pushback.
Ashland Source asked him to respond to two criticisms in particular: criticism of the theory that meth use is causing homelessness to increase, and criticism of pushing the narrative that communities are being destroyed by foreign traffickers.
“I don’t mind having pushback,” he said, “because what I’m doing is not advocating. It’s reporting.”
Regarding the homelessness criticism, he said in his travels he saw meth march across the U.S. coupled with rises in homelessness. But he also gestured to other possible causes of homelessness.
“Homelessness is about as complex as every person who is out there,” he said, “but here’s the thing, once you’re homeless the meth is so prevalent and so mind tangling.”
Regarding the criticism about placing blame on foreign traffickers, specifically those from Mexico, Quinones argued that his reporting is a reflection of what he has seen to be true, citing that he lived in Mexico for 10 years.
“Most of our drugs come from or through Mexico,” he said. “There are a lot of reasons why that is and we can get into all kinds of interesting conversations about why that is.”
Quinones explained his process: he finds a story, talks to people that know more than him about it, and tells the story that comes from that.
“The idea that there’s been this kind of hyperbole around the drug world, I say ‘no I didn’t see a hyperbole.’ It was all catastrophic.”
Quinones will serve as keynote speaker during Ashland’s MHRB annual “RSVP Conference on March 30. Ticket sales to the all-day event have ended.
