STAMFORD — The opioid overdoses that have shaken many communities will continue to increase unless more federal funds are earmarked for addiction treatment, officials said Tuesday.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, met in Stamford Tuesday with community leaders from across the region to drum up support for emergency funding that would help Connecticut towns battling an alarming rise in overdoses caused by heroin and prescription painkillers.

“My office is spending a lot of time on this issue right now,” Murphy told the gathering at the Stamford Government Center. “Some of the laws are backward and byzantine, but you also need more beds and resources to take on the scope of this problem.”

The spike in heroin and opioid deaths has been a growing national problem. There were 729 people who died from drug overdoses — including 415 that involved heroin — in Connecticut last year. There were 308 fatal heroin overdoses in 2014, according to data from the state Office of the Medical Examiner.

Stamford — the state’s third-largest city — has fared better than most communities, with only one heroin death reported last year.

“Don’t think this is a demogphically distinct or a socioeconomically distinct issue,” Himes said. “I represent probably the most affluent area in Connecticut, and of the 17 towns and cities I represent, I don’t think one of them hasn’t had a fatality.”

The U.S. Senate in March rejected a $600 million appropriation for emergency funds to combat the rise of heroin and opioid abuse, Murphy said. Meanwhile, he said, $4 billion was authorized for Ebola, which has killed fewer than a dozen people in the United States.

The senator recommends changing a law that caps the number of patients doctors are able to treat for addiction with prescribed medications.

Murphy also wants to increase the number of inpatient beds available to addicts in recovery by amending a law that prohibits Medicaid dollars from being spent on that kind of long-term care.

These laws, he said, contribute to why overdose deaths statewide are on track to double in 2016.
“Stamford and Fairfield County’s numbers aren’t as bad as they are in Waterbury,” he said. “But if we do nothing at the federal level, just give it time. The numbers will get as bad here as they are in Waterbury and New London.”

Experts trace the heroin epidemic to a rise in painkiller abuse, which often starts with a doctor’s prescription and ends with heroin — a drug far cheaper and easier to get than painkillers.

“Hospitals and doctors know how to treat around addiction, but they don’t know how to treat addiction,” said Al Mathis, CEO of Liberation Programs, a treatment center based in Norwalk.

“People are under the misunderstanding that Narcan and detox are treatments for addiction, and they simply are not,” said Mathis, referring to the overdose reversal drug used by many police departments.
“The few dollars that come to the state from the federal government hits folks who have organizations with no training in treating people for addiction,” he said. “And with this disaster we’re in, agencies like mine have gotten no new resources.”

Forum guests spoke in favor of education, and noted how hard it can be to bring drug education to schools that are mostly concerned with academics.

“The stigma is still entrenched,” said Nick Despoelberch, a drug counselor in Darien and at Pivot Ministries in Bridgeport. “There’s a fear that we don’t want our community associated with that dirty ‘heroin’ word.”