State Panel Finds Preventable Drug Overdoses Killing Kentucky Children, Hazard Herald Reprints

Perry County readers found a stark report on page 4A of the Hazard Herald’s Feb. 25–March 3, 2026 edition when the paper reprinted a Kentucky Lantern summary of Kentucky’s Child Fatality and Near-Fatality External Review Panel annual report. The panel found 98 children had ingested or overdosed on dangerous substances in state fiscal year 2024, and 11 of those children died.

The panel, created in 2012 and described as an independent panel of physicians, judges, lawyers, police, legislators and social service and health professionals, produced a more-than-100-page annual report covering July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024. The summary reprinted locally notes the panel reviewed only fatal and near-fatal cases and recorded 72 child fatalities and 176 near fatalities statewide for FY2024.

The overdose and ingestion cases break down to 98 total events - 11 fatalities and 87 near-fatalities - with the most common substances listed as cannabinoids (28 percent), fentanyl (19 percent) and methamphetamine (16 percent). The report summary states, “11 children died from ingestion/overdoses. The report does not identify which substances killed the children.” The average age in those cases was three years old, as noted in the panel summaries posted by Kentucky Youth Advocates.

Cannabinoid exposures climbed dramatically: the panel’s counts rose from five cases in 2020 to 41 cases in 2024, a change described in multiple summaries as a 720 percent increase over five years; one Hazard Herald subhead used the looser phrase “more than 100 percent” over five years. The Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center added statewide context, reporting that cases of drug overdose and ingestion by children increased from 16 percent of panel-reviewed cases in fiscal 2019 to 35 percent in 2023 and that pediatric fatalities tripled in five years.

The panel and advocacy summaries tied family and environmental conditions to the trend: 91 percent of overdose/ingestion cases involved environmental neglect, 53 percent involved domestic violence, and 71 percent of abusive head trauma cases involved caregiver substance abuse. Face It Movement and Kentucky Youth Advocates stated the panel determined roughly 81 percent of reviewed cases were potentially preventable; KYPRC summarized that 80 percent were potentially preventable and that fentanyl appeared in 93 percent of opiate-involved child ingestion cases.

Other violent causes surfaced in the FY2024 review. Physical abuse cases rose 31 percent to 55 cases from 42 the prior year, with 76 percent of those physical abuse cases judged “almost fatal” for the child victim. The panel reviewed 11 injury cases in FY2024 and found nine children died from firearm injuries among those cases; the previous report had reviewed 12 injury cases.

State prevention work highlighted in the KYPRC materials includes the Medication Lock Box Project run through KSPAN’s Child Home Safety Committee and funded by the Kentucky Agency for Substance Abuse Policy and the Child Fatality Review Panel. KYPRC reports more than 16,800 medication lock boxes have been purchased over the last five years, and Steve Cambron, Program Administrator at the Kentucky Department for Behavioral Health Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities, said, “The Medication Lock Box Project has become an integral part of our state opioid prevention efforts.” Cambron added, “Since being involved in the program, we have been able to distribute 4,500 lock boxes to individuals in need so that they can safely store their medication, and prevent illicit use, and child drug overdose.”

The statewide overdose backdrop remains severe: Justice Ky’s 2023 summary reported 1,984 Kentucky overdose deaths in 2023, with fentanyl accounting for 79.1 percent and methamphetamine 55.2 percent of overdose fatalities. Gov. Andy Beshear said, “By working together, we have decreased the amount of drug overdose deaths in Kentucky, yet still far too many lives have been lost, and we still have a long way to go,” and added, “From the far west to the far east of the commonwealth, we are creating a home where fewer children will know the pain of addiction and loss of a loved one to an overdose.”

Hazard Herald readers in Perry County seeking immediate help can contact Kentucky’s Statewide Child Abuse Hotline at 1-877-597-233 or Poison Control at 800-222-1222. Kentucky Youth Advocates and KYPRC published a “Panel Recommendations” blueprint that emphasizes safe storage, education, packaging changes and wider lock box distribution as concrete steps for decisionmakers to reduce the preventable child deaths documented in FY2024.