New mobile narcotics treatment center helping to prevent overdoses in Chicago
One of the city’s hardest hit areas for overdoses is on the West Side. That’s the reasoning behind a new mobile UIC Narcotics Treatment Center parked in a vacant lot near Pulaski and Van Buren.
CHICAGO – There were 1,930 opioid deaths in Cook County in 2021.
In 2020, there were 1,846.
So far in 2022, there have been 868 and many deaths are still pending.
The majority of overdoses are being contributed to the synthetic opioid known as fentanyl being used in cocaine, meth, and pills.
SUBSCRIBE TO FOX 32 CHICAGO ON YOUTUBE
Just last week three people were discovered on the ground in an alley in Lake View near Belmont and Halsted. Two of them were males, and they died from a suspected overdose.
The third person was a woman. She was revived because of Narcan and CPR.
One of Chicago’s hardest hit areas for overdoses is on the West Side, with many open-air drug markets. That’s the reasoning behind a new mobile UIC Narcotics Treatment Center parked in a vacant lot near Pulaski and Van Buren.
Three days a week, the bus offers fewer addictive options and even clean needles for users.
“One of the reasons we’ve seen an increase in the opioid overdose deaths is that the market has changed drastically in the last four, five years as synthetic opioids have hit the market. So synthetic opioids being higher potency such as fentanyl, and that has become a part of the drug supply, We know that over 90 percent of our opioid overdoses in Chicago are fentanyl. And so, when we’re in the field we assume that that’s what everything is, is that high potency out there. But that’s what we’re seeing a lot of,” said Jennie Jarrett, lead clinical pharmacist.
The UIC’s converted RV is one of two approved by the DEA’s Chicago Field Office.
.