WHEELING — The number of deaths attributed to drug overdoses across West Virginia is on the rise, but data presented during a Thursday forum show drug deaths in Ohio County are declining.

Information on drug trends in Ohio County was presented Thursday night during a “Show Me The Data” forum at St. Matthews Episcopal Church in Wheeling. The event was sponsored by the Community Impact Coalition.

Among those present were local first responders, public officials and social and mental health care workers.

Martha Polinsky, project coordinator for the Community Impact Coalition, started the forum by providing data from the West Virginia Controlled Substance Monitoring Program. The data showed the statewide overdose death rate for all drugs at 48 per 100,000 residents in West Virginia for 2016. This was a jump from 39.9 in 2015.

The same numbers showed Ohio County having 28 overdose deaths per 100,000 residents in 2016, down from 37.2 in 2015. The 2016 mark ranked Ohio County 27th among West Virginia’s 55 counties.

Similar numbers were reported for the number of overdose deaths related specifically to opioid overdoses.

Timothy Priddy, education coordinator for the West Virginia Office of Emergency Services, praised Ohio County officials, telling them the programs they have set in place are working.

“There are several things being done in the county,” he said. “Law enforcement is aware of drug issues, and of the hot spots for drugs. The health department and some civic organizations are already involved and working to spread the word and training people to recognize an overdose in an individual … .”

More physicians are taking care in writing prescriptions for painkillers, and more families are becoming proactive in finding treatment for loved ones affected, according to Priddy. He presented information collected by the West Virginia Office of Emergency Services showing the number of times emergency crews were called to deal with specific drug overdose cases in each month since 2014.

The numbers showed that in most months, local EMS crews handled few or no overdose cases pertaining to cocaine, Ecstasy, fentanyl, LSD, marijuana, methamphetamines, methadone and opiates. The numbers were somewhat higher for heroin overdoses, however.

Those figures drew skepticism from Lt. Rod Vaught of the Ohio County Sheriff’s Department, who said they don’t represent what he is seeing as a member of law enforcement. He said most of the time, officers and first responders may not even know if a person has overdosed on fetanyl until they get back toxicology reports — often months after the fact.

Because of the potency of fetanyl and carfentanyl, law enforcement officers are now prohibited from doing field tests at the site of the overdose, he added.

“Whatever they are writing on the run form, I can tell you specifically we have had more than one (overdose run for fetanyl) in the last 30 days, and the numbers you have are much higher,” Vaught said. “We just don’t know it until we get the toxicology reports that is what is in the system. What the EMS puts down is based on evidence at the scene.”

The data, though, showed Ohio County above the state’s average in the number of emergency calls pertaining to alcohol abuse for the month of November.

The statewide county average was 17.5 calls, while Ohio County reported 22.