BROWN COUNTY, Wis. (WFRV) – Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach declared fentanyl a public health crisis back in 2022, and since then, officials have worked to fight the opioid crisis through prevention and recovery programs.
According to a release from Tuesday, the county has seen the number of fentanyl and opioid-related overdose deaths decrease 50% from Sept. 2023 up to Sept. 2024.
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“Brown County’s awareness campaign has made north of 4 million impressions from TV ads, billboards and direct mailers,” Streckenbach said. “We’re starting to bend the curve the right way, but we’re not out of the woods yet.”
50 of the 62 drug overdose deaths that were reported in 2022 across Brown County were fentanyl-related. In 2023, that total was 63 overdose deaths, with 49 relating to fentanyl. As of Sept. 10, there have been just reported 17 drug overdose deaths in 2024, 11 of which involved fentanyl.
That’s comparable to 2018, when Brown County had 24 total overdose deaths with nine involving fentanyl. In the past two years, Brown County Public Health (BCPH) has initiated a multi-media campaign to have conversations with young people about fentanyl.
Credit: Brown County Government
BCPH also created a task force focused on prevention, response and recovery, with multiple programs designed to listen to the community and learn from its people on what was needed.
While the county is heading in the right direction, BCPH Officer Anna Nick says that there’s still a lot of work to do. The campaign is evolving daily, as they work to help provide young people with coping strategies to prevent people from getting involved with substances in the first place.
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“Helping parents and community leaders understand what is happening in the lives of young people is important to understand what the stressors are that are driving our youth to take substances that can lead to overdose,” Nick said.
Nick added that it allows the campaign and everybody involved to teach healthy skills so that in stressful situations, their first move will not be to use dangerous substances.
