By james art 
After Uwk We looked widely at the percentages of the killing of Baton Rugs in 2024, we wanted to dive deep down in the percentage of drug overdose in the city.
Uwk Talks to the parish of East Baton Rouge The Park Clark and Member of the Special Investigations Department in Baton Rouge to learn more about what drugs have the biggest impact on the Baton Rouge area and how the police work, for the police, for the police To remove them from this to remove them from the area.
In 2024, Batton Rouge saw 178 overdose, although these numbers are not yet official, as toxicology reports on some potential overdose are still in anticipation. This is a reduction of approximately 30% of the percentage of overdose compared to 2023.
Fentanyl continues to be the most dangerous medicine in the city
Compared to 311 deaths from overdose in 2021 – a high water assessment of the city, the trends of death of overdose are steadily decreasing.
While 178 upcoming cases of overdose since last year are still almost three times higher than the 66th deaths of overdose, representing a decade ago in 2014, the coroner of EBR Parish Dr. Beau Clark says the city is making progress in the right direction.
Clark said the massive jump in the mortality of an overdose that the city had observed since 2020, when the death of an overdose jumped from 126 in 2019 to 242 in 2020, was mostly due to the powerful synthetic opioid drug fentanyl S
According to the National Institute for the most recent drug abuse statistics, nearly 70% of the deaths of overdose in 2022 in the United States were involved in fentanyl.
These numbers also follow in Baton Rouge. In 2022, Fentanyl was responsible for 91% of the death of an overdose, which reduced to 85% in 2023 and slightly increased last year to 86%.
Clark says he attributes this reduction to two reasons.
“Number one, you saw a rather deep and aggressive component of law enforcement, taking tones and tons of fentanyl from the street. Obviously, when they violate such supply lines, then people who suffer from substance abuse are less likely to overdose as they have less access to drugs, “Clark explained.
The second reason Clark said it was because of the amount of Narkan, which now flooded the streets of Baton Rouge. Narkan is a treatment with the nose designed to quickly turn the effects of life -threatening opioid emergencies. Naloxone is another healing agent used to turn the effects of emergencies of opioids.
“They can still overdose, but if we can get them to survive with an overdose, then it is more likely that they can get treatment and help to disorderly misuse drugs,” Clark said. “Narkan is the bandid that causes us a live patient to work on the disorder of their drug abuse, because once you overdose and die, we really cannot help you with your abuse problems.”
While Narkan and Naxoxon may be influential to reduce the death of overdose, Clark said that since fentanyl is such a powerful opioid, a dose of any of these drugs may not be enough, so it’s important to call 911 in The moment you believe that someone can be overdosed if they are already given an agent for turning like Narkan.
Massive drug busts contribute to reduced OD numbers
As Clark escaped, law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge worked tirelessly last year to make several massive drug busts. Last August, the BRPD Special Investigation Department made one of the largest drug busts in Louisisana’s history, taking 181 pound fantanyl from the streets in one bust – this is enough fentanyl for deadly overdoses for 42 million people.
In another bust that happened just days before this one, BRPD seized Fentanyl worth nearly a million dollars and 150 kilograms of meth after searching two properties in Baton Rug. BRPD said these two busts were connected.
4.5 pounds of fantanyl taken in this bust would be a deadly overdose of 250,000 people – this is almost half the population of the parish of Eastern Baton Rouge.
The officers also seized the heroine, stolen firearms and other illegal drugs tied to these busts.
BRPD’s deputy chris chris McClur says the department of special investigations of the department was occupied in 2024.
They seized 266 pounds meth, 186 pounds of fentanyl, 8 pounds of heroin, over 15,000 fake fentanyl pills and over 25 pounds of cocaine.
While the large -scale busts like the two Brpds made last year influence the delivery of medicines in the city, McClure said it could be difficult to judge how many of these illegal drugs were intended to be sent to other cities in the United States
“It is difficult to quantify how many of these drugs will be delivered to Baton Rouge to other areas of the country. Based on our investigation, we learned that not all these drugs were intended for Baton Rouge. This is a center where medicines will be sent to other areas. We have broken the supply chain here as well as other states across the country, “McClur said.
A new medicine on the streets
Clark said that a new illegal medicine he saw to pop out of the toxicology reports was Xilazine, which runs along the name of the Tranq Street. The drug is a veterinary sedative that is used as a form of anesthesia in horses or zoo animals, such as giraffes undergoing surgery.
The drug is especially dangerous because it is not opioid and thus medicines such as Narkan do not work to reversal the effects of overdose.
“You could turn overdose effects of fentanyl with Narkan, but you can’t turn it with Xilazine, so these people (overdose) will need medical attention immediately to prevent their deaths,” Clark explained.
Clark said his cabinet has had Xilazine on his radar for several years, as they are always trying to keep up with national trends.
“We are always on the lookout for what you can be the next thing you know. We started with heroin in 2012, which was replaced shortly afterwards with fentanyl and since then we have almost seen extremely fentanyl and even to the extent that they mixed fentanyl and other illegal drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana. That is why in the past you see such a large number because many people unknowingly absorb fentanyl and die as a result, “Clark said.
McClure said BRPD did not make any Xilazin busts in 2024, but said they were on the lookout, especially since the medicine continued to be sent to the country by Mexican drug cartels.
Other remarkable trends
Residents of the EBR parish between the ages of 26-39 were most likely to die of drug overdose last year, with 44% of all drugs from drug overdose falling within this age range.
The most death day of the week for overdose was Saturday, with 18% of the deaths of parish overdose happened that day, followed by Monday and Thursday, which both represent 16% of the death.
July was the most deadly month for the death of an overdose by 12%, followed by April by 11%and January by 10%.
The postal code 70816 is the place where the highest percentage of overdose deaths occurred in each of the previous three years. 70816 represents more than 16% of the deaths of overdose in 2024.
While McClure says there is still a lot of work to be done to get the deaths of Batton Rouge overdose on where it was a decade ago, he said he had reason to be optimistic.
“We are watching about a 31% reduction in general throughout the year, which is quite significant. I think this is a combined effort of our drug use, but it’s just a small gear in the wheel. This is also everything else we do when it comes to our Narkan training with our officers.
Clark sounded these points.
“Finally, we see what I suggested all the time to work. I said we needed aggressive law enforcement agencies and should place a nark in the hands of everyone. And then now, when we are at this point, we may be able to start working on the problems of people addiction, and this becomes what leads us from this epidemic, “Clark said.
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