From the editor’s desk: It’s a bad news, good news kind of day

Published 2:58 pm Friday, October 13, 2023

At a time when drug addiction and overdose deaths are daily news topics, we learned this week that a new street drug has appeared on the horizon.

ISO — short for isotonitazene — is an opiate said to be stronger than fentanyl.

Local police said they’ve been hearing about ISO for months, and addiction counselors say they’ve talked to local drug users who say they’ve taken ISO. But police in Medford so far haven’t been able to confirm its presence through testing.

Det. Sgt. Josh Reimer of the Medford Drug and Gang Enforcement told Rogue Valley Times reporter Erick Bengel that local police are awaiting results from the Oregon State Police crime lab that may confirm the presence of ISO in Medford.

Police have seized drugs in recent months that are suspected of containing the substance, but lab tests have turned up negative for ISO while still testing positive for other drugs that dominate the supply: fentanyl and its derivatives, methamphetamine, heroin and the animal tranquilizer xylazine (street name: “tranq”).

Reimer said he attends annual meetings in California on the topic of the fentanyl crisis with the state’s High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area teams. These are multiagency task forces composed of local, state and federal agents. In the most recent meeting this summer, agents said ISO had hit the streets of San Francisco, where more than 99% of the drugs that reach Jackson County originate, Reimer said.

Dr. Kerri Hecox, medical director at Oasis Center of the Rogue Valley — an addiction treatment provider in Medford — said some of her patients claim to have used ISO. Oasis cannot confirm this, because the agency does not yet have the capacity to test for the drug in people’s systems.

According to a 2022 article on the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, nitazenes like ISO are “linked to overdose deaths in several states. Nitazenes were created as a potential pain reliever medication nearly 60 years ago but have never been approved for use in the United States.”

In other local news, the Rogue Valley Association of Realtors reported this week that home sales are continuing to fall in Jackson County, especially in urban areas.

Sales of existing homes in the cities of Jackson County showed a 21% decline for the third quarter of 2023, according to the Realtors.

The median sales price during the third quarter was $400,000, down 2.4% from the $410,000 posted during the same time in 2022. The declines in both prices and sales numbers continue a trend that began last year, when the third quarter showed a 32% sales decline from 2021.

Rising interest rates get most of the blame for the slowdown.

The average 30-year fixed rate nationwide was reported at 7.95% Wednesday by Bankrate.com.

“You take interest rates going from 2.75% two years ago to today nearly 7.75%. That’s an incredible difference,” said Colin Mullane, spokesman for the Rogue Valley Association of Realtors and principal broker with Full Circle Real Estate in Ashland.

Someone who could afford a $700,000 home two years with a payment of about $2,200 a month would now only be able to buy a $300,000 home for the same monthly cost, Mullane said.

To end this week’s entry on a positive note, we reported Friday on a new tack shop opened in Central Point by local equestrian Kim Samitore.

In a horse-crazy town like Central Point, the emergence of the Tack it Up Boutique, at 425 Oak St., is a great piece of news.

Central Point had a tack shop called the Horse Blanket for decades, but the store was sold and the new owners couldn’t make it work and closed down last June.

In the interest of transparency and full disclosure, we have to report that Kim Samitore used to be a page designer at the Mail Tribune, and several members of the Rogue Valley Times worked with her before that paper collapsed last January.

Some of us climbed back on the horse that threw us when EO Media came to town to launch a new paper. Kim decided to follow her dreams and open a business that matched her job with her passions. 

— David Smigelski, editor