Drug & Alcohol Rehab For Knox, Indiana

Knox is a small city in northern Indiana, bordered to the north by the Yellow River and several man-made distributaries on its western side. Knox serves as the seat of Starke County and is the largest city by population in the county. Not to be confused with Knox County, which is located in the southwestern corner of the state, the city of Knox was founded in 1851 and has grown its population and economy through manufacturing and, more recently, health care and retail.

Sadly, Knox is perhaps best known for some troubling statistics. It is among the cities in Indiana with the lowest rate of college graduates (just 5.5% of the adult population), and the average income for Knox residents remains low compared to the rest of the state. According to the latest census data, Knox and the rest of Starke County have a median household income of $62,933, which falls about 11% short of the state median. Additionally, the county has a slightly higher poverty rate of 13.1% compared to 12.3% across all of Indiana. [1]

This may not sound that bad, but despite being the largest city in the county, Knox reports some of the lowest counties of any city or municipality in the county. One report from 2015 named Knox as one of the poorest cities in the state, with a median household income (at the time) of $30,300. By all indications, little has improved for the economy of Knox residents. [2]

Living paycheck to paycheck has only exacerbated the ongoing substance abuse crisis for hundreds of Knox residents. Based on the most recent data, marijuana and meth are the most commonly abused substances in Knox, Indiana. The city also sees the abuse of other addictive substances, such as alcohol, prescription opioids, cocaine, and heroin.

Continue reading to learn about substance abuse and addiction in Knox, Indiana. And remember, if you or a loved one are fighting addiction in Knox or the surrounding area, you can always reach out to Addiction Rehab Centers for help.

Drug and Alcohol Addiction in Knox

Indiana’s protocol for substance abuse data is for counties to collect and organize the number of arrests, overdoses, and fatalities related to addiction from all municipalities within each county’s purview. This helps ensure that small cities like Knox, which may not have the budget to collect their own data, can allocate funds to other needs. However, when counties collect data, they don’t differentiate where each case originates. This means that substance abuse cases originating in the city of Knox get combined with cases originating in other nearby towns and cities, like Hamlet and North Judson.

That said, Knox’s population is nearly three times that of the second largest city in the county, and its 3,599 residents account for roughly 15.3% of the county population. By some estimates, Knox contributes an even larger percentage of substance abuse cases, potentially as high as 40%. While this is not good news for Knox residents, it does allow us to use county-level data to analyze the current crisis in the city of Knox.

Starke County is one of the smaller counties in Indiana, which means that it should record a relatively small number of fatal overdoses each year. However, Starke County’s death count has been surprisingly high over the last decade. Even if it were more in line with its total population, it would still be important to understand how many people are perishing as a direct result of addiction and to evaluate how this statistic has changed over time. The table below shows how deaths involving all drugs (including alcohol) have changed in the county over the past few years. [3]

*Data for 2023 and 2024 is provisional and may be subject to change. The last date that data was collected was 09/04/2024.

With the exception of 2016, every year with finalized data saw double-digit overdose fatalities in Starke County. When only looking at the time period with finalized data (2016 to 2022), fatal overdoses more than doubled from 8 to 17. The data for 2023 and 2024 is still provisional, but it does appear to show a decline from the peaks reached during the COVID-19 pandemic. We will have to wait and see if this trend continues once the latest data is finalized.

Even though the number of fatal overdoses per year is high in Starke County, the number of non-fatal overdoses is much higher. This is largely because non-fatal overdoses are more common, and this applies across all of Indiana and the rest of the country. Moreover, non-fatal overdoses are often easier to calculate with precision, as they can be collected via hospital discharges and emergency department visits involving addictive substances. The table below shows the relevant overdose data in Starke County between 2016 and 2024: [4]

*Data for 2023 and 2024 is provisional and may be subject to change. The last date that data was collected was 09/04/2024.

While we can’t rely on the data for 2023 or 2024 until the data has been finalized for both years, it’s clear that there has been a downward trend in non-fatal overdoses in Starke County. Between 2016 and 2022, annual non-fatal overdoses declined by 17.8%. This often indicates that addiction cases are declining, but it’s important to evaluate this data in relation to total overdoses and fatal overdoses.

In 2016, Starke County recorded a total of 109 overdoses (fatal and non-fatal). The same year, the county recorded 8 fatal overdoses, accounting for 7.3% of all overdoses. By 2022, Starke County recorded a total of 100 overdoses — a decline of 8.2% since 2016. However, 2022 saw 17 fatal overdoses, accounting for 17% of all overdoses. This means the fatality rate more than doubled in just 6 years.

Types of Substance Abuse in Knox

In 2023 and 2024, marijuana and meth were the most abused substances in Starke County. Many other counties in Indiana have recorded a declining rate of alcohol abuse, often in favor of other drugs like meth or opioids, and Knox is no exception. Marijuana and meth have far surpassed alcohol in prevalence, particularly in more recent years, even though alcohol is one of the most abused substances statewide. It’s important that we disclose how we come to these conclusions. The data is based on arrest and re-arrest data involving different types of addictive substances. This does offer an overview of how different substances are being abused, but it doesn’t account for all cases, namely those that do not involve any arrest records.

Here is the latest data from Indiana’s Next Level Recovery program showing the arrests involving different kinds of addictive substances between 2016 and 2024 in Starke County:

*Statistics for 2023 and 2024 are still preliminary and do not account for the entire calendar year(s).

There’s an inconsistency in substance trends that makes it difficult to track a clear pattern in Starke County. Total arrests have declined slightly since 2016, while marijuana, meth, cocaine, and drug paraphernalia arrests have increased. The number of arrests involving opioids is much higher in Starke County than in most similarly-sized counties in Indiana. However, this figure has been erratic, showing no clear upward or downward trajectory from one year to the next. That said, the combination of high opioid and drug paraphernalia arrests may indicate a higher prevalence of heroin abuse, as drug paraphernalia arrests are typically associated with heroin and meth abuse.