Decline in overdose deaths continues in Knox County amid outreach efforts
According to the District Attorney's Office, 110 people have died of suspected drug overdoses in Knox County so far in 2025. This time last year, there were 137 deaths, and this time in 2023 there were 185 deaths.
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Jessica Birch, Regional Overdose Prevention Specialist with Metro Drug Coalition, said this decline is expected to continue.
'The data kind of tells a story as to what that's going to look like, if it's going to trend upward or if we are going to start seeing some of those declines. So we have, and we expect to continue to see some of those, but at the same time we do have an everchanging drug supply,' she explained.
So, what is leading to the decline? Enforcement is part of it.
'The enforcement component of it is really important,' Scott Erland with the Knoxville Police Department said. 'In terms of identifying those individuals who are responsible for trafficking drugs in our community, and the scourge of those overdose deaths, holding those individuals accountable, cutting off that supply and saving lives.'
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Several local agencies work together through the Drug Related Death Task Force. In April, KPD arrested a man as part of an investigation into an overdose death of a 23-year-old woman. Three people were also indicted in April, in connection to two other deaths.
'We had Amanda Martin and George Joslin, who were both indicted and arrested in connection to a March 2024 overdose death of a 54-year-old woman. And we recently had Demichael Hines, who was indicted for second degree murder in connection to the December 2023 overdose death of an 18-year-old woman,' Erland said.
Community outreach is another factor behind the decline in deaths.
'We continue to host free trainings for the community, we continue to do also the individual kind of intervention type trainings as well,' Birch said. 'Then with the community outreach efforts, that's where we're able to distribute all the harm reduction tools that we have such as Naloxone.'
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Suspected drug overdoses in Knox County have been dropping since 2021, when there were 533 deaths. In 2024, there were 301 deaths. These deaths were reported by the Knox County Regional Forensic Center. Since they are suspected overdose deaths, the numbers can fluctuate throughout the year.
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