By GAIL LOWE
WAKEFIELD — Police yesterday responded to a report of an unresponsive man on Bartley Street and when they arrived at his home, they could not rouse him. Officers found a hypodermic needle lying under his arm.
The man, age 23, was taken to Melrose-Wakefield Hospital for treatment. Today his condition is not known.
The incident in the police log was listed as a “medical aid” and was called in by a female friend of the 23-year-old man.
Sgt. George Thistle along with Patrol Officers Christopher Whalen and Gerald Holleran were the responding officers.
While it has not been confirmed that yesterday’s incident was related to illicit drug use, a surge in overdoses are playing out all over the state and nationwide, as was reported in the Daily Item in Thursday’s edition.
In spite of spending $2.5 trillion over four decades, since former President Richard Nixon declared a War on Drugs, heroin potencies are far greater and drug and overdose rates are soaring to unprecedented heights.
Fire Chief Michael Sullivan said firefighters respond to drug-related medical aid calls nearly every week but not all lead to death.
Wakefield’s Police Chief Rick Smith confirmed this fact earlier this week. Though deaths from illicit drug use have declined in town, illicit drug use, heroin in particular, continues to climb, largely due to the cheap prices and availability.
Deaths in Wakefield have declined, Smith said, due to Action Ambulance’s accessibility to Narcan, a drug that helps counteract the effects of opiate overdoses.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in 2009, drug overdoses surpassed car accidents to become the leading cause of accidental deaths in the United States.
According to IMS Health, a worldwide information, services and technology company dedicated to improving health care, pharmacies dispensed more than $9 billion in prescription opioid painkillers in 2011, more than twice the amount a decade earlier.
Today, one in five Americans have at least one psychiatric or pain medication prescription, said a spokesman for IMS.
“We are continuing to work diligently to try to stem the flow of drugs in our community,” said Chief Smith. “We’re working with agencies in all areas and sharing intelligence all the time. We’re also trying to find drug dealers on the street and prosecute them. We’re in the field all the time.”
Drug-related deaths are happening not only to everyday people. Last March, actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the most ambitious and respected actors of this generation, was found dead in his Manhattan apartment with a heroin needle still sticking out of his arm.
Hoffman left behind his wife and three children.