Local internist Dr. Edwin Chapman, who has specialized in addiction for over two decades, thinks the nation’s capital should be taking the opioid problem in the city just as seriously as the federal government.
“If the leadership of this city doesn’t see this as a crisis, and the President sees it as a crisis, and we’re number one in overdoses overall, and number two in opioid overdoses, then obviously, there’s not the type of emphasis that there should be.”
Chapman, is one of 21 local leaders preparing to serve on the District of Columbia’s Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission, officially sworn in during the inaugural meeting at the D.C. Department of Behavioral Health on the morning of Oct. 25. He’s gearing up to tackle opioid and help the District understand the importance of the critical issue.
Local drug recovery advocates and organizations have openly criticized the city’s less-than-aggressive approach to addressing practical solutions and resources to residents struggling with addiction. Many insist that rising overdose fatalities show a public health emergency should be declared within the District of Columbia.
Opioid Commission members will actively advise Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and the D.C. Council on what they consider the most effective ways to spend the projected $80 million in opioid settlement money to combat growing rates of overdose deaths.
Current rates show 461 deaths over a five-year window through the end of 2022, and the horrific stream of fentanyl penetrating the city’s drug supply.
Larry Bing, a local drug prevention navigator working to provide resources for displaced men and women across the city, airs on the side of caution as he awaits to see the influence of the burgeoning commission on city officials’ next steps.
“I want to be able to participate for this year that [they’ve] given me and make a difference. But if we can’t give the Mayor the motion to call this a crisis, then why are we even here?” Bing asserted.
Dynamics Behind the Growing Crisis
According to a September 2023 report from the chief medical examiner, the District has already seen 238 opioid-related fatal overdoses over the year through June 2023, with traces of fentanyl present in 98% of those fatalities. The devastating crisis particularly affects African American men, as the city presents unique dynamics varying from the appearance of opioid abuse within municipalities of majority white populations.
While opioids have always maintained a presence throughout the city’s drug market, the initial national wave of the crisis primarily presented itself in Caucasian communities in the early 2000s, with the use of pain relievers like morphine and codeine, in addition to semi-synthetic drugs like oxycodone and hydrocodone. However, in Washington, D.C., the opioid crisis presented itself through the explosion of heroin since the 1960s and 70s.
Today’s opioid epidemic has ramped up in a dangerous way where fully synthetic fentanyl and tramadol are rampantly filling open-air drug markets across the District and surrounding communities. Washington, D.C. comprises an African American population of 46%, yet disproportionately accounts for 85% of overdose rates in the city, with 74-75% being Black males.
“Our epidemic was not from pills from the doctor’s office. It was always heroin. Heroin, or street drugs. In about 2015, the drug supply became tainted with synthetics in the form of fentanyl and fentanyl analogs,” Chapman explained. “So we had about 20% fentanyl in 2015. And by 2022, it became 98%. It’s 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. So because of that construct, that is what makes our epidemic so different from other cities, and other places.”
With such dangerous factors at play, multiple commission members and opioid recovery advocates alike question why the city has yet to follow behind Maryland, and Virginia in declaring the city’s opioid crisis a public health emergency and creating greater infrastructure to support drug-addicted residents in need.
Bing, 69, once walked a tumultuous journey of addiction as a District resident navigating through the heroin era of the prior opioid epidemic. Now on the other side of recovery, he works to guide residents undergoing drug treatment to secure resources that will rebound a stable life.
Although he holds his reservations, Bing said he stays hopeful that the District’s opioid settlement funding will allocate money towards more accessible recovery facilities in closer range to residents in Northeast, and East of the Anacostia River.
Following the preliminary Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission meeting, the D.C. Council will convene to confirm whether the District will declare the opioid and fentanyl crisis a public health emergency on Thursday, Oct. 26.
Housing Is Key
For over 20 years, Chapman has treated some of the District’s most vulnerable residents who have spent nearly a lifetime struggling to attain sobriety. Chapman’s clinic, in Northeast D.C. on Benning Road, works with a variety of prescription treatments to wean patients off of opioid use.
But after two decades of aiding numerous residents to sobriety, Chapman identified the second most vital antidote that encourages stability during and after recovery: housing.
While District natives began to feel the crunch of rising rates in the rental and housing markets, the stark transition brought about new businesses, real estate, high rises, and new housing developments. This boom in luxury housing simultaneously created a breeding ground for despairing residents and open spaces for drug use throughout the District.
Chapman expounded on the direct correlation between displaced residents seeking affordable housing and the rapid increase of drug abuse and overdose rates.
“One of the key factors is housing, and that had become a major issue even before COVID with the rapid gentrification in the District. But now all of a sudden we have open-air drug markets and people, homeless people using drugs in the parking lots, and all over the city. So, you can’t separate this from the underlying gentrification. The fact that there’s an obvious move to move black folks and poor folks out of the city,” said Chapman.
Bing also hopes the city can provide housing support for residents.
“If you’re homeless, nine times out of 10, you are going to be addicted to either a drug or alcohol, because emotionally you don’t want to feel anything. And the only way you want to deal with that pain, since you don’t have a home to go to, is the only safe space you feel you have, which is a needle in your arm, a bottle, or something [to stop the feeling],” Bing said.
I fully support the statements of Dr. Chapman. The problem of opioid use, like virtually all medical problems is related to the patients’ socioeconomic status. If our country, and our city are truly committed to improving health care outcomes we must provide everyone a basic socioeconomic stability.