(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — It was in 2012 when Dr. Richard Jorgensen became DuPage County coroner.
"The summer of 2013 was when it really shook me,” he said. “We were getting all these overdoses. We had 38 overdose deaths, and that, I thought, was a lot. Now we're up to 150 overdose deaths."
Jorgensen said he used to see only a few drugs involved in deaths.
"But the last two or three years we are seeing what I call a poly-pharmacy: a large variety of different drugs in the system," he said.
So, in his annual report, Jorgensen has started listing all the drugs present in toxicology, rather than listing one drug as the cause of death. In 2022, for example, cocaine was present in 55 of the 150 overdose deaths in DuPage County.
He said that’s been part of a trend — one where he's seen fewer cases where heroin was present and more cases with cocaine.
Jorgensen has also seen newer drugs start to appear in overdose deaths.
“Out in California — they call it ‘tranq’ — it’s real common out there, but the real name is xylazine. It’s an animal tranquilizer or pain medicine, and we’re starting to see a fair amount of that,” he said. “I think we had 12 or 13 cases.”
Overdose victims have also started trending toward older age groups, Jorgensen said. Ten years ago, it was mostly people in their 20s or 30s. Now, he said, they see as many people who were in their 50s as they see people in their 20s.
Jorgensen added that males accounted for 75% of overdose deaths, and 25% were female. Race and ethnicity, he said, reflected the population of DuPage County.
Related
Related
Listen to our new podcast Courier Pigeon
Listen to WBBM Newsradio now on Audacy!