The Daily Solution: Reversing Cochise County's deadly trend

Overdose prevention program shows signs of success … Drug deaths are down and tens of thousands of people have been reached ... It really was a hot one last year.

Fatal overdoses have increased steadily across the country in recent years, with cities and towns struggling to find effective solutions as fentanyl continues to flood the streets.

Officials acknowledge that even with the availability of funding, resources and programs to help people struggling with addiction and the groups that work to support them, it’s been more than difficult to get a handle on the situation. The struggle is even greater in rural areas, which often lack the money, infrastructure and tools for widespread interventions. 

This includes Cochise County, which has been hit especially hard by the opioid crisis. In 2022, Cochise County saw its highest number of fatal drug overdoses since tracking began in 2012, with the 48 fatalities representing the county’s leading cause of non-natural deaths.

As the death toll rose in Cochise County, a nonprofit that works to improve the lives of people with substance use issues began a targeted effort to increase resources in the area.

Sonoran Prevention Works launched its three-year, grant-funded Cochise Overdose Project in the fall of 2021 with the goal of creating multilevel change and supporting prevention, harm reduction, treatment and well-being.

Harm reduction focuses on keeping people who choose to use drugs as safe as possible by giving them tools and information that allow them to make healthier choices. Since not everyone is ready or willing to stop using drugs, harm reduction at least helps ensure that they are less likely to die from their drug use.

A year into the program, distribution of the opioid-reversing medication naloxone had increased by 50%, but staffers and contractors were just getting started. As of mid-December, the project had distributed 36,395 doses of naloxone and nearly 10,000 fentanyl test strips.

“The really big goal of this project has been to help build systemic change within Cochise County,” said project manager Mariana Velazquez. “We want to increase the abilities of communities themselves to be able to do harm reduction.”

Creating systemic change doesn’t come quick, but it seems as if the project’s efforts are starting to pay off: As of December 28, Cochise County recorded 42 fatal overdoses, a nearly 13% decrease from 2022.

While it’s easy to find out how many people died from drug use, it’s a lot harder to nail down how many haven’t, since not every nonfatal overdose or naloxone use is documented. But the more than 600 overdose reversals reported in Cochise County since the program launched shows that naloxone is ending up in the right hands, Velazquez said.

If that doesn’t seem like a big number, to Velazquez and others at SPW, it’s more than enough.

“Even one reversal is one life who got another opportunity,” she said.

In a little more than two years, more than 3,000 of Cochise County’s 125,000 residents have been reached through the project’s outreach efforts and given the supplies, education or resources to help fit their needs.

To accomplish this, SPW partnered with established providers across the county and also set up new harm reduction sites in Bowie and Willcox, which have been historically difficult to break into, according to Velazquez. In addition to naloxone and fentanyl test strips, providers distribute wound care kits, hygiene supplies and other basic care items, since many of the people they serve are unhoused.

Another component of the project has been educating staff at existing locations and contracting with individuals and groups to offer mobile outreach, distribution and testing services.

“We really are focused on people with lived experience who know the community, who understand what’s happening and who are a face already within that community,” Velazquez said. “A lot of times we see well-intentioned organizations come into areas where they don’t know anybody, and it can take a long time to build relationships. But working with rural contractors, they already have some of the knowledge and are able to communicate with people about this.”

Velazquez said SPW’s reach wouldn’t be nearly as large without the help of their community partners, who will also be the ones to make sure the work continues after the grant ends.

But to create the systemic change they’re looking for, it’s going to take more than just passing out naloxone and test strips. That’s why the project included the creation of a consortium of area groups that regularly discuss work plans, challenges and trends they’re seeing in the community.

The consortium is made up of seven key organizations, along with roughly 50 unofficial partners who help distribute naloxone in the community.

Through the consortium, Benson Hospital created a policy to help people who arrive at the emergency department with signs of substance use. The hospital also started a program to prescribe buprenorphine, a medication used to treat people with opioid dependence.

“We find that a lot of times folks really avoid going to the hospital due to previous negative experiences and when they do go, there really isn’t a capacity to provide them with something that’s going to help them in the long-term,” Velazquez said.

The last piece of the project has been advocating for changes to the rules around naloxone distribution and the mentality surrounding substance use, which has been part of SPW’s efforts across the state for years. In 2021, Arizona legalized syringe service programs (needle exchanges) and fentanyl test strips, thanks in large part to the group’s work.

The project is officially ending on Sept. 1, but Velazquez is confident that with the education, training and resources provided, a system is in place to make sure these efforts continue.

“These rural areas get seen as being very not open to this kind of mentality, but if it wasn’t for the folks who were willing to open their minds to the concepts of harm reduction and see that overdoses are killing the people they love, we wouldn’t be able to do the work we do,” Velazquez said.

It’s a hot one: Last year was Tucson’s third-hottest on record, the Arizona Daily Star’s Tony Davis reports. The two main culprits were climate change and the urban heat island effect, experts said. Among the records broken last year was the hottest second half of a year since record-keeping began in 1895. That hot period was kicked off in July when every day topped 100 degrees, just the second time that’s ever happened in Tucson. 

Back in business: The Lukeville port of entry is opening back up today, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram writes. The port is the main way to cross the border into Mexico for people living in Ajo and other communities, as well as tourists going to Rocky Point. It was closed for a month after federal officials pulled staff from the port to help process migrants and asylum seekers. In a rare moment of agreement on a border issue, the closure sparked widespread bipartisan condemnation by officials from Arizona and Congress. 

Unblocking school funds: The debate over funding for the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and Blind is coming back to the Arizona Legislature this session, Arizona Luminaria’s Ana Teresa Espinoza reports. Last legislative session, Republican state Sen. Jake Hoffman blocked funding for the schools, which serve 2,000 students in Tucson and Phoenix. This time around, state Sen. Priya Sundareshan, a Tucson-area Democrat, sponsored SB 1001 to continue funding for the schools for the next 10 years. 

Digging deep: The Herald/Review’s Shar Porier gets into the details of recent reports from the Arizona Department of Water Resources on water in Cochise County. The reports focus on the Douglas Basin, where voters decided last year to regulate groundwater, and the Willcox Basin, where voters rejected more regulation. In both basins, demand for water, mainly from agriculture, is outstripping supply. 

Time for a refund: Tucson officials are trying to get back $100,000 in incentives they gave to the self-driving truck company TuSimple, the Star’s David Wichner writes. The company brought a big investment and high-paying jobs to Tucson several years ago, but last month the company’s executives decided to lay off most of their employees in Tucson. That move puts the company in noncompliance with the incentive agreement and city officials are demanding a refund.

New direction: Neighborhood associations in Tucson are trying to become nonprofits to help raise money through grants and donations, KOLD’s J.D. Wallace reports. The Palo Verde Neighborhood Association got approval from the IRS and is filing paperwork with the Arizona Corporation Commission. They’re hoping to raise money for projects like traffic-calming features and park improvements.

795,341: The number of doses of naloxone distributed throughout Arizona by Sonoran Prevention Works between 2017 and 2022. During that same time, the group reported that 23,121 overdoses were reversed.

We’re starting off the year in a good place financially, but we’re not sustainable yet. Help us reach our goal!