When Cayuga County Coroner Dr. Adam Duckett broke down the area s 24 overdose deaths last year by the drugs that were involved, he expected to see heroin at the top of the list.
It wasn t. In fact, Duckett told The Citizen Monday, more of those 24 people had cocaine in their systems than the opioid at the forefront of the local drug epidemic of the last decade.
But the reason for that is another drug, one that was also in the systems of most of the people who fatally overdosed after using cocaine or heroin in Cayuga County last year: fentanyl.
According to Duckett s data, 18 of the 24 overdose deaths last year involved fentanyl. Eight involved cocaine, six involved heroin, five involved benzodiazepines, two involved molly and two involved the tranquilizer xylazine. Most involved two or more drugs, but fentanyl was the sole cause of two. All but one involving heroin also involved fentanyl, and all eight involving cocaine also involved fentanyl.Â
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Bryan Bush describes the effect the COVID-19 pandemic is having on a new drug problem in Cayuga County this way: âGasoline on the fire.â
Bush, a certified recovery peer advocate at Confidential Help for Alcohol & Drugs in Auburn, sees the problem several days a week at the Cayuga County Jail, where he counsels inmates.
For every 10 who sit across from him, eight or nine have recently switched their drug of choice from heroin, Bush said.
âThey tell me they donât care about heroin anymore,â he said. âJust molly.â
It has been around for more than a decade, but use of molly has increased in Cayuga County during COVID-19. Sheriff Brian Schenck said his office has seen the synthetic drug more than any other substance this year.