HIGH POINT, N.C. — The state of North Carolina has received its first payment from the nationwide $26 billion dollars opioid agreement.
The City of High Point is set to approve its first batch of money from that settlement.
Opioids have become a major issue here in the Triad over the last decade, and according to Scott Muthersbaugh, from Guilford County Emergency Management Services (EMS), the Coronavirus Pandemic seemed to only make things worse.
"We've seen people who were in treatment already, early in the pandemic those meetings and treatment interactions were shut down... around the same time we saw a big jump in the strength of the drugs themselves."
Since 2020, 360 Guilford County residents have died from suspected opioid overdoses. So far in 2022, Guilford County EMS has administered 650 canisters of Narcan in just 137 days this year.
"The opioid epidemic is very real and it's here. We've been tracking the numbers over the past 10 years. We've seen about an 800% increase in Narcan administration since we started tracking that in 2013."