Death — at least, the aftermath of it — costs money, whether the burden falls to family, taxpayers or both.
Burials, moving bodies, autopsies and toxicology tests are subject to inflation like anything else, according to a monthly update from the Lewis County Coroner’s Office. Mortuary prices have risen, too. With that, the office is requesting an additional $130,000 from the next general county budget. Last year, it spent a total of $221,551.
“Our costs have skyrocketed this year,” wrote Coroner Warren McLeod in an email to The Chronicle. “Due to increase in the costs and the number of autopsies, the increase in costs and the number of transports and the increase in costs and the number of cases requiring toxicology testing.”
This year, the county is already on track to surpass its all-time high of 32 drug-related deaths from 2021. As previously reported by The Chronicle, there were 26 in 2022. Per the coroner’s update from this week, the county has already seen 23 drug-related deaths this year.
That’s a rate of just under 3.8 drug-related deaths per month. If the track continues, the county will surpass 2021’s total of 32 by more than a dozen.
Drug-related and other deaths without natural, obvious causes often require autopsies and toxicology tests. Year over year, costs for the latter have risen by $89. There has also been a scarcity of forensic pathologists, the professionals who perform autopsies. Since June 2022, the cost of a single autopsy went from $1500 to $1900, McLeod reported.
Toxicology tests are more expensive now because of the “expanded panel” needed to search for fentanyl and xylazine, McLeod said.
Lewis County has yet to see any deaths related to the drug xylazine, which the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) warns has seen a sharp increase in the United States this year.
Also known as “tranq,” the drug is a powerful sedative the DEA has called the “deadliest” drug America has faced.
Fentanyl, however, McLeod said, is nearly ubiquitous. A synthetic opioid 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, fentanyl is commonly mixed with other drugs such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine and made to resemble other prescription opioids, according to the CDC.
“Fentanyl is now in just about 98% of all returning tox results either in lethal amounts or in small amounts,” McLeod said. He added that the Centralia-based Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team (JNET) “has told us about the cartels lacing the marijuana with small amounts of fentanyl to make it more addictive.”
So far this year, the coroner’s office has totaled 458 total deaths, including one with an undetermined cause, four homicides, five with pending tests, 13 suicides and 27 accidentals (including the 23 drug-related deaths). The remaining deaths were from natural causes.
Year-to-date case numbers for county deaths are shared with the Lewis County Commissioners each month. The last two meetings were canceled, however, due to a coroner’s office staff member dying and the Fourth of July.
A few months ago, the coroner’s office also started sharing notes from these meetings with The Chronicle for publication, because, as McLeod said, most county residents can’t attend meetings on Tuesdays during work hours.
