Mental anxiety and stress driving up drug-related deaths

By Kristen Consillio

Click here for updates on this story

    HAWAII COUNTY (KITV) — Kym Gentry-Peck and her daughter, Ginger, learned to play the ukulele together when they first moved to Hawaii.

Mom said Ginger was creative and talented with a bright future ahead.

But at just 14-years-old her life was cut short late last year from a fentanyl overdose on the Big Island.

And now Kym is pleading for more mental health services in the islands.

“It’s a societal problem that we can’t run away from,” she said.

Kym said her daughter was waiting three months for a doctor’s appointment after suffering from mental health issues.

“Three months later, she’s dead. There’s something wrong with that,” she said. “We’ve got to give people mental health care. It’s got to be affordable. It’s got to be accessible.”

Drug-related deaths jumped to 320 last year, up from 305 the year before, according to the latest statewide data from the Hawaii High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.

Drug enforcement agencies said mental anxiety and stress are big reasons for the increase in drug use.

“Our children had been under a lot of stress and from this stress there’s going to be trauma and trauma leads to drugs,” said Gary Yabuta, director of the Hawaii High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.

Methamphetamine is still the greatest threat, but fentanyl is on the rise.

And people are mixing the drugs with other illegal substances, creating an even more lethal combination.

“This is what we’re seeing — the persons that are dying in our streets are using more than one drug that’s succumbing to their death,” he added.

Drug enforcement officials said increased drug use won’t stop anytime soon.

And that it’s up to all of us to drive home the message about just how dangerous illegal drugs are.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.