Berrien County saw a drop in drug overdose deaths in 2024, according to the latest medical examiner’s report.
Dr. Patrick Hansma of the Western Michigan University School of Medicine addressed the Berrien County Board of Commissioners on Thursday to report the latest death statistics, and the news was mostly good. The number of drug-related deaths for the year was 35, compared to 57 in 2023. 22 of those 35 deaths were due to opioids, compared to 38 the previous year.
Berrien County Administrator Brian Dissette suspects the reason for the drop is the overdose-stopping drug, Narcan.
“You can go to just about any drugstore and get Narcan, but then you can also go into county and local public buildings,” Dissette said. “So you can go into a Corewell building, you can go into the Niles Courthouse, the St. Joe Courthouse and find that there is Narcan free and available. I think that the prevalence and the availability of Narcan probably has had a positive impact.”
Suicides in Berrien County were also down in 2024 compared to 2023, with 17 last year and 29 the previous year. The most common method of suicide remains firearm. The county had eight homicide deaths in 2024, versus 14 the year before. Juvenile deaths were also down in 2024, with eight compared to 17 the year before.
One negative statistic — fatal crashes were up last year, with 18 deaths compared to 16 in 2023.