New mobile narcotics treatment center helping to prevent overdoses in Chicago

CHICAGO - The DEA has launched a fentanyl awareness campaign, showing lives cut short because of overdoses.

Sadly, across the country, there’s been a rise in overdose deaths.

"The number of overdoses has increased dramatically. I think we are at 107,000 overdoses in 2021," said Lauren Fish, Director of Services at Hazelden Betty Ford in Chicago.

In Cook County, the numbers have gone up, too. The majority of overdoses are being contributed to the synthetic opioid known as fentanyl being used in cocaine, meth, and pills.

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Just last week, three people were discovered on the ground in an alley in Lake View near Belmont and Halsted. Two men died from a suspected overdose — autopsy results are pending.

The third person was a woman. She was revived because of Narcan and CPR.

All it takes is just few grains of fentanyl, the equivalent to table salt, to be fatal.

"It used to be that fentanyl may or may not be in the drugs, but now you can almost guarantee that it is," said Fish.

It’s also cheaper to make, creating a profit for the drug dealers.

In 2021, there were 1,930 opioid deaths reported by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.

In 2020, there were 1,846.

So far in 2022, there have been 868 and many deaths are still pending.

One of Chicago's hardest hit areas for overdoses is on the West Side, with many open-air drug markets. That’s the reasoning behind a new mobile UIC Narcotics Treatment Center parked in a vacant lot near Pulaski and Van Buren.

Three days a week, the bus offers fewer addictive options and even clean needles for users.

"One of the reasons we've seen an increase in the opioid overdose deaths is that the market has changed drastically in the last four, five years as synthetic opioids have hit the market. So synthetic opioids being higher potency such as fentanyl, and that has become a part of the drug supply, We know that over 90 percent of our opioid overdoses in Chicago are fentanyl. And so, when we're in the field we assume that that's what everything is, is that high potency out there. But that's what we're seeing a lot of," said Jennie Jarrett, lead clinical pharmacist.

The UIC's converted RV is one of two approved by the DEA’s Chicago Field Office.