DRUG STUDY TO FOCUS ON MANSFIELD

MANSFIELD -- Spurred by reports that Richland County had 20 to 25
drug-related deaths over a year and a half, a state epidemiologist
will coordinate a study of local drug abuse.

Findings may be released to local officials by early next
year.

What's discovered could be used to help guide local anti-drug abuse
policy, Richland County Board of Mental Health and Recovery Services
officials said.

The Ohio Substance Abuse Monitoring (OSAM) network has existed since
1999. It produces reports every six months -- focused primarily on
Ohio's largest cities -- looking at current drug abuse patterns, drug
availability and quality issues, and health treatment concerns.

"We try to get the findings out to the community, to the boards and
policy makers as quickly as possible," said Sandy Starr, planning and
outcomes research chief for the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug
Addiction Services.

No prior study focused solely on Richland County.

But OSAM, headquartered out of Wright State University, occasionally
does study smaller communities, such as Marietta last year, after the
city saw a rash of heroin-related deaths among young people.

State drug abuse officials said they decided to send an epidemiologist
to Richland County after the News Journal contacted ODADAS for
interviews concerning the deaths.

The number looked high, given the population, they
said.

"We know that we'd like to get in there as soon as possible," Starr
said.

ODADAS would like to have a report on Richland County drug abuse
patterns in time for OSAM epidemiologists' twice-yearly meeting on
statewide trends Jan. 28 in Columbus, he said.

OSAM at first attempted to set up a local "focus group" in November,
probably involving treatment counselors, drug abusers, police
investigators and other individuals, Starr said.

However, the Richland County mental health board sought a delay. Local
officials said the board's alcohol and other drugs subcommittee, which
would help the state put together the focus group, was being
reorganized and expanded.

OSAM wants to schedule two Richland County focus groups sometime this
month or next, to look at the "larger picture" of what's happening in
Richland County, Starr said. What's learned might then spur a more
targeted response to specific local issues, he said.

OSAM studies turn up trends of interest to parents, educators, medical
workers and others:

For instance, one study in the Columbus area last year turned up
reports that heroin abuse was particularly on the increase among
college-age "creative" types such as artists and musicians; that
methamphetamine abuse had gone up in gay dance clubs; and that
marijuana use appeared to have dropped among young people --
apparently because some of them had turned to harder drugs like
crystal meth or cocaine.

In the same report, a treatment counselor also expressed concerns that
some parents or grandparents who had prescriptions for OxyContin as a
painkiller were inappropriately dispensing the addictive drug to young
relatives as if it were Tylenol.

OSAM reports on drug abuse in Ohio's larger cities can be found at
www.med.wright.edu/citar/osam.html.