Here's what Iowa is doing about its opioid problem

As opioid addictions and overdoses grab headlines across the country, Iowans are noting the problems locally and fighting back through lawsuits against drug makers, prosecutions of drug dealers and support groups for grieving families.

President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency in October.

There were at least 195 opioid-related deaths in Iowa in 2017, according to incomplete data provided by the Iowa Department of Public Health. That number is already more than the 180 deaths reported in 2016, and it is expected to rise as the department continues to receive death certificates for 2017.

The year's numbers include 97 overdoses, 30 of which were from heroin and 59 of which were heroin-related, according to department of public health data.

COMPLETE COVERAGE: The science of opioids

Lawsuits

Governments in Iowa are following a national trend to fight opioids: litigation against pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the painkillers that are blamed for kicking off the crisis.

Thirty-six Iowa counties, including Polk and Dallas, are plaintiffs in federal lawsuits against five pharmaceutical companies, their subsidiaries and three physicians for allegedly downplaying the risks of opioids, aggressively marketing opioid use to physicians to treat chronic pain, and failing to report or investigate "suspicious orders of prescription opiates."

And Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller has joined 40 other state attorneys general in an investigation into several opioid manufacturers and distributors, filing subpoenas to investigate how prescription drugs are marketed and distributed.

The defendants named in the lawsuit are Purdue Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Cephalon, Johnson & Johnson, and Endo Pharmaceuticals.

In October, Miller also reached a deal with drug company Amphastar to provide a $6-per-dose rebate to public agencies in Iowa, including law enforcement and public hospitals, which purchase naloxone, a drug that stops and reverses opioid overdoses.

Prescriptions

Prescriptions of opioid painkillers and other addictive pills fell by about 10 percent in 2017, from 301 million pills sold in Iowa in 2016 to about 270 million last year, or 90 pills per person in the state.

Iowa’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, which collected the data, was launched in 2009 to give health care practitioners a way to check to see if patients seeking pain pills had received similar prescriptions from other clinics.

Health care providers in Iowa are not required to check the electronic registry before prescribing addictive medication, unlike in some other states.

MORE: Iowa's lost boys of heroin leave grieving mothers in the wake

Opioid-related cases account for 11.6 percent of all formal actions taken by the Iowa Board of Medicine from the beginning of 2011 through the end of 2017, according to Mark Bowden, the board's executive director.

Fifteen opioid-related cases during that time resulted in formal actions, such as public sanctions against doctors, while 34 resulted in informal actions, such as letters of warning, which are not public. The board received 193 complaints and professional liability lawsuits related to opioid prescriptions during that time, and 71 of those are still open, pending investigation.

Prosecution

Law enforcement agencies are targeting the problem in new ways, as well. Last year, first responders in Des Moines alone administered over 202 doses of Narcan, a brand name version of the naloxone drug law enforcement and hospitals use to reverse opioid overdoses.

And police and prosecutors are working together in overdose cases.

Marc Krickbaum, U.S. attorney for the southern district of Iowa, told the Des Moines Register in December that his office often works with law enforcement to treat overdoses and overdose deaths as criminal cases to target suppliers of the drugs.

"That is a crime scene, and we are going to target the suppliers and the suppliers' suppliers and work as far back as we can," Krickbaum said in December.

Krickbaum said his office is also seeing more deaths related to fentanyl, a potent, synthetic opioid that is often laced into other drugs and can cause them to be much more powerful — and deadly — than the drugs' buyers expect.

"That stuff is unbelievably lethal, and so targeting it is a huge priority for this office," he said.

Resources for families

Parents Addicted to Hope, a new group in that has formed on Facebook, is for parents in Des Moines and the surrounding area who have suffered the loss of a child due to the opioid epidemic who are “solution seekers.” It is not a group for grief support or to discuss legal issues. It can be found at facebook.com/groups/146309946082319.

A grief support group formed last fall in the Des Moines area for family members who have lost loved ones to opioids. Contact griefgroupdsm@gmail.com to get connected.

I Hate Heroin is a Dubuque-based nonprofit group that offers support and inspiration for those affected by opioid addictions. They can be found at facebook.com/IhateheroinUS.

About the series

Opioid addiction has become the new American plague, one seemingly born of greed that affects millions each year and kills hundreds every day. The USA TODAY Network is taking a deep look at how this plague has ravaged the nation, why opioids have claimed so many lives and what is being done to stop it. See more of the series at DesMoinesRegister.com.