 Welcome to the Addiction Recovery Channel. I'm Ed Baker. Today, we're very lucky and pleased to have Sarah George, Chittenden County State's Attorney as our guest. Welcome, Sarah. Thank you for having me in. Yeah. Sarah has been our State's Attorney in Chittenden County since 2017 and has really been an outspoken advocate for people at risk for drug overdose and death. And that will be our topic today. Sarah, just in general, in your own words, can you please describe what you see happening in our beloved Chittenden County today? So I think what I've been seeing lately is what I've sort of seen historically, but given COVID has seemed to become worse and worse with time, and that is that as our social service resources have dwindled, our risk of drug use and drug overdose has gotten worse. And people are struggling in a way that I haven't personally seen before in our community. And that, again, I think is from, well, when COVID hit, a lot of our social services closed. A lot of individuals were kicked out of their housing or lost their housing due to the housing market. Our voucher program had all of the issues it did. We had encampments getting taken down. And all of those things have made our social service issues and our social issues in general have gotten worse. I mean, I know that part of your role is to respond to overdose death. So what are you seeing as the trend in our county and in Burlington in particular? What is the death toll currently? And has it been increasing over the past years? And how do you see it as like moving into the future also? Any predictions? Yeah, so because our office is called for every overdose fatality, I have been keeping track for the last four or five years now, at least for how many people are dying. And what I've seen so far this year is that we're at around 50 of our community members, and that's in Chittenden County, who have died from fatal overdoses. That's about on track with last year, if not a little bit higher. But certainly last year was significantly higher than the two or three years prior to that. So we are seeing overall an upward trend. And we're also seeing that the places in which individuals are dying are more and more sort of brutal and sad in that people are dying in cars and in the parks or in public spaces and public restrooms. I think, again, going back to how many more people we have without homes in our community means that those deaths are occurring in really scary places. So approximately 50 deaths to date, and this is getting toward the end of November. If I'm not mistaken, I do believe last year the total for the year was 51 or 52. So it looks like we're losing more than one Vermont per week in Chittenden County. Is that correct? Yes, that would be my estimation. We haven't had any fatalities in November, so certainly there are weeks where we don't, but overall there are some weeks we have multiple. And certain times of the year seem to be a little bit worse, but overall I would say once a week is accurate. And in the state, I know last year the Centers for Disease Control estimate was a little above 260 Vermonters lost. The state estimate was a little bit lower, but Chittenden County, I do believe, has the highest number of deaths per year. That may be. I really only focus on Chittenden County typically because that's my world, but that would make sense, certainly given our populace. We have over a third of the state's population, so I would be quite surprised if we didn't have more than the rest of the state. Let's just take a look at this slide that we have here. This is a Burlington Police Department overdose response slide. And as you can see, obviously, it's so clear the concentration of overdose responses and also overdose deaths is in Burlington, downtown, Burlington. I think that's a very poignant visual. Do you have any comments on that? Yeah, I think that what we see everywhere in the country is that these overdoses tend to happen in places that are concentrated with services or bus stations or shelters and all of these other things that might bring these individuals to those areas. Certainly, Burlington is always at a higher risk of having higher numbers. Those blue and purple dots are really terrifying to think about how many people are overdosing in our downtown center. Given this, the kind of language that I use to describe this is catastrophic. What do you see as going forward? Do you see any... Given the structure that we have in place to deal with people with severe drug use disorder, people who are overdosing and dying, can you predict the future? Do you see it as improving or staying the same or worsening, giving you a vantage point and your knowledge and your experience? What are we in store for here? I would say that based on what I see in my office and the individuals that are coming through my office, if we continue to treat this as a criminal issue and a police and prosecutor issue versus a public health issue, and we focus more on putting these individuals in jail versus giving them housing and providing them with housing and employment and services, this is only going to get worse. But if we really take the time to spend those same resources or the settlement money and other things that the state has access to, to actually giving these individuals support, and that's not just through drug treatment, but a lot of these individuals are suffering from really significant trauma. They need mental health services as well. They need child care as much as a lot of us are dealing with, and they need, again, safe and secure and affordable housing and employment. If we don't focus on those particular things and spend the resources there, it's only going to get worse. And I would also say that as long as, again, we see this behavior as criminal, we're going to be responding to this issue instead of doing anything to prevent or help. Well, thank you. Thank you for your perspective. Sarah will be joining us as a member of a panel at the end of the show, a panel that will be focused on solutions. For now, Sarah, is there anything that you would like to personally say directly to people out there in Chittenden County who are at high risk for drug overdose and drug overdose death? Yeah, I mean, I really just want those individuals to know that I care about them, that I want them to survive, that we can't help them if they are no longer with us and that I don't want to be responding to the scene of their death. And if they are feeling like they are ready to not be in this situation anymore and want help, then I would suggest that they go to the Monash for Criminal Justice Reform and talk to those folks or go to the hospital or go to the methadone clinic, go to anybody that they think will help them and start that conversation and we will do what we can to help them get into some type of treatment. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate the work you've done and I look forward to supporting the work that you will do in the future, Sarah. Thank you, Ed. I really appreciate that.