More Americans died from drug overdoses last year than ever before.
And while the number of lives lost is up across nearly every demographic
since the start of the pandemic, there's been an especially alarming
spike and overdose deaths among black Americans. John Yang reports
from ST Louis on what's behind a growing public health crisis.
I'm gonna take a listen to your heart and lungs. ST Louis Clinic.
52 year old Gerard Row has a routine appointment with Dr Konica Cunningham.
She makes the usual checks even deeper.
Blowout.
This is it now It's about another issue. She's monitoring you said
still kind of using a little bit. Are you using safe and we had talked
about that before? Okay, Snorting not doing anything. I ve okay.
Cunningham of family practice position treats drug addiction, inter
patients just like any other medical conditions like high blood pressure
or diabetes. If they're not ready to stop using drugs, she wants
them to use them safely. Considering the last time that happened,
you had that overdose.
So
Yeah, I don't want you to overdose again. My treatment plans incorporate
safe use tips, Safe consumption tips. 1 800, number two. Never use
a long review and how to use our cancer. I want people to leave feeling
empowered and equipped with information because it's a chronic disease.
Recurrence of use is going to happen. So if we know that it's going
to happen. Why don't we give the individual in front of us share
that knowledge that I have so that I can see you next week at your
next appointment? I see you two weeks later.
Approach she believes could help stem the soaring number of drug
overdose deaths, especially among African Americans.
Here in the ST Louis area. Since 2015 deaths from drug overdoses
are up nearly 400% in the black community rate of increase that's
eight times higher than the rise among white residents. It's a public
health crisis that's largely been overshadowed by the pandemic in
2020 and 2021. We lost over 400 black men.
Over two years span. We lost more people to overdoses than to covid
19. This is a civil rights issues and human rights issue that we
need to change is a chronic disease and we have stigmatized a chronic
disease. Yes, has been battling addiction since 2016 when he was
depressed over losing his job, and someone offered him heroin.
So I was in the dumps.
And I thought that maybe I had to make me feel better if I snort
a couple of lines.
That hooked me.
And it hooked me five years. I mean, hooked me bad.
Heroin gave way to fentanyl, A synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful.
Eventually he was taking up to 35 pills a day. Was it just wanting
it? Or was it needing it needed it even stopped paying bills.
Just to get that. You know, the nice apartment. I was written that
I was at
For five years. That's gold. Um, I mean, it really took me through
some things to overdoses of his own, couldn't convince him to try
to stop.
But the overdose deaths of two others close to him. Did I lost a
son?
He overdosed. I lost a brother.
All in one year overdosed on fitting all
Hmm. And that will be up. No if they said, But no second guess and
I gotta stop has been Cunningham's patient for three months. I mean,
some days just like up here. I mean, it's so intense that I can't
get past it and put them on Suboxone, one of the main medicines used
to treat opioid addiction. Let's see how you do that should really
help control.
Your cravings that would draw, he says. It's helped him cut down
to a single fentanyl pill a day
where the need is, Um, and that's where I like to go to reach people
like row Cunningham teams with other health care providers and community
groups to take treatment out of doctors, offices and clinics and
into neighborhoods like this one in North ST Louis
cleaned up. What are your thoughts about that?
I would love to have that mobile treatment centers offer things like
the overdose reversal drug Narcan and offer tips on how to safely
use drugs
is one effort to bring treatment, bring everything into the community
and now always rely on the community to come to us. And what are
people getting here? What's being handed out food? Um, they're given
Um, are Candace there fit? No testing strips as well. People need
access to sign up for Medicaid. So we get them at least start. The
initial process will sign them up for Medicaid. It's part of an effort
to build trust and break down barriers in neighborhoods that Cunningham
calls treatment deserts where our treatment centers are situated.
Sometimes people have to catch two and three Busses to get there.
So imagine the burden we put on people to come to us to see us and
then you have a small window of getting around. Time of your bus
is late.
You tell you can't be seen, so it's just it's so many different issues.
Also part of the neighborhood effort. Clergy like the Reverend Roderick
Burton, Nora can. This is what we used to reverse an overdose
definitely need to get this into the hands of the community. Cunningham
advises them how to talk about substance abuse in ways that show
compassion. The church unfortunately, has been many leaders and members
of added judgmental.
View of people suffering from addiction. We can learn number one
was the white way to talk to people who are experiencing this, so
we're not doing so in a judgment away, but also how can we acutely
address when people do fall out?
How can we save their lives? I remember walking the street with my
grandmother going to the corner store and
in attitude that Cunningham knows firsthand. She grew up in the ST
Louis area and recalls Howard grandmother spoke about people in the
neighborhood who used drugs was
Also raised to view substance used as an issue drug use problem that's
on the individual. And now the more knowledge and education I see
that it's more of a systemic issue was not on the individual is trauma
is systemic Racism is all of that. All that can be a hurdle between
people who use drugs and finding treatment. Overdose crisis is disproportionately
affecting black people because they can't get their basic needs.
Met. Devon Banks is a psychologist at the universe.
City of Missouri ST Louis.
There's a stigma associated with being a person who uses drugs, and
there's a stigma associated with being black. The people who are
being affected recognized that stigma and discrimination and that
prevents them
from feeling safe.
In treatment settings. Taking your medication
taken, Cunningham says. Getting patients into treatment is only half
the battle. Often an even bigger challenge can be keeping them. Their
next appointment is
It's the third
Next month. Okay, community health worker De'anthony Henderson crisscrosses
the city, checking on patients and being an extra set of eyes and
ears for Cunningham.
Sometimes in the doctor's office.
You know, they don't feel comfortable with sharing a lot of things.
So when I come out, they usually serve Sara more with me, and I'll
be able to share it with the doctor
to get you up to a good dose to help treat it all part of Cunningham's
approach to treating addiction one. The Gerard Roque credits for
the progress he's made. Don't scold me.
She gives me
She lets me make my own decision.
Either you go. Stop or not, But I'm gonna tell you if you don't stop.
This is the result.
And if you do stop, this is the result. Can you put into words what
they give you?
Hope.
Confidence.
Give me the power to overcome this.
Um
They give me outlook on a better future
really appreciate. You do
a future that he hopes will not include drugs for the PBS news hour.