Drug & Alcohol Rehab For LaGrange, Indiana

LaGrange, Indiana, is a relatively small town and the seat of LaGrange County in northeast Indiana. It sits at the crossroads of Interstate 20 and Detroit Street. The town is best known for its beautiful courthouse, which has been a feature of the town center since its completion in 1879. Aside from its historical sights, LaGrange is also known for its natural beauty, with various forests and hiking trails on the outskirts of the town.

LaGrange is small with approximately 2,735 residents, but it is still the largest town in LaGrange County. While the town’s population has remained consistent over the last few decades, LaGrange County has seen an influx of new residents, growing from 29,477 in 1990 to 41,122 in 2024. Due to its small size, there is very little public information on the local economy in the town of LaGrange, though it has historically been rooted in manufacturing and agriculture, as well as seasonal tourism.

The median income in LaGrange and LaGrange County is much higher than the state median, making it one of the most affluent counties in Indiana. The median household income in LaGrange is $83,741, compared to just $70,051 statewide. Moreover, LaGrange boasts a lower poverty rate of just 8.4%, compared to 12.3% across all of Indiana. [1]

Despite the economic prosperity in LaGrange, the town and the county have not escaped the dark cloud of addiction. Substance abuse is one of the biggest contributors to death, crime, and poverty in the area. Unfortunately, there are not many local resources to help those in need. Based on the most recent data, marijuana, meth, and alcohol are the most commonly abused substances in LaGrange, Indiana. The city also sees the abuse of other addictive substances, such as prescription opioids, cocaine, and heroin.

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

Drug and Alcohol Addiction in LaGrange

Small Indiana towns like LaGrange do not collect their own substance abuse data. In fact, Indiana has infrastructure in place so that counties can collect data from within their borders and aggregate it for the state. Why does it matter? Because individual substance abuse cases originating from small towns like LaGrange get combined with cases originating from other towns and municipalities. This makes it more difficult to know exactly how severe the substance abuse epidemic is from one town or city to the next.

With that in mind, LaGrange is the largest town in LaGrange County, and currently accounts for about 6.6% of the county population. However, by some estimates, the town of LaGrange contributes as much as 20% of the county’s substance abuse cases (including arrests, overdoses, and fatalities), which means that examining the county data provides an accurate picture of the town’s substance abuse crisis.

Deaths, or more accurately, overdose fatalities, are typically the first data point we examine. Not only do we consider this to be the most important, but it can also shed light on the local efforts to prevent overdose deaths. In small populations like LaGrange, overdose fatalities tend to be low from one year to the next. However, if we detect a higher-than-average death rate, it often indicates a severe substance abuse problem in the region or a lack of resources to help those in need.

In any case, the table below shows how deaths involving all drugs (including alcohol) have changed in the county over the past few years. [2]

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

The number of overdose fatalities in LaGrange is even lower than in many other counties of its size, and this is largely due to a sudden increase in deaths beginning in 2020. Prior to 2020, the worst year was 2018, with just 3 fatalities. The COVID-19 pandemic saw an increase in overdose fatalities in most counties across Indiana, and LaGrange was no exception. The data for 2023 and 2024 is still provisional, but it may indicate that fatal overdoses are declining from the peaks reached during the pandemic. However, no data has been reported for 2024 yet, so it’s still too early to draw a firm conclusion.

Though the town of LaGrange is much smaller than the county of LaGrange, they are both small when compared to larger cities and counties throughout Indiana. In these smaller populations, it’s often more beneficial to study the rate of non-fatal overdoses and how these figures change over the years. It’s also important to note that non-fatal overdoses are easier to collect with greater accuracy, as they are gathered via hospital discharges and emergency department visits involving addictive substances. The table below shows the relevant overdose data in LaGrange County between 2016 and 2024: [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.

The number of non-fatal overdoses shows a much different image of substance abuse in LaGrange County. The number of overdoses per year is high, and it increased to a peak of 53 in 2021 before declining once again. The data for 2023 and 2024 indicate that non-fatal overdoses may continue to decline further, but once again, it is too early to know for sure.

Besides examining fatal and non-fatal overdoses, it’s vital to compare these two figures and see how they make up the total number of overdoses in LaGrange County. In 2016, for example, LaGrange County recorded 47 total overdoses (non-fatal and fatal). Only 1 of these overdoses was fatal, accounting for just 2.1% of all overdoses that year. By 2022 (the most recent year with finalized data), LaGrange County recorded 38 total overdoses. 4 of these were fatal, accounting for 10.5% of all overdoses.

So what does this mean? Despite the total number of overdoses declining dramatically, the rate of fatal overdoses increased four times over between 2016 and 2022. This could be attributed to a wide variety of factors, such as stronger illicit drugs (like fentanyl and similar synthetic opioids) being more heavily abused, people abusing more than one substance at once, and a lack of local resources to prevent overdose deaths.

Types of Substance Abuse in LaGrange

In 2023 and 2024, marijuana, meth, and alcohol were the most abused substances in LaGrange County. This is a trend we’ve seen across many counties in Indiana, though alcohol abuse has become less common in much of the state, while marijuana, meth, and even heroin abuse have been on the rise. This is all based on arrest and re-arrest records, which is not a perfect science. It does not account for those who abuse drugs or alcohol and evade arrest or do not commit any crimes. However, it does offer a glimpse of the different types of substances being abused and how trends in substance abuse have shifted over the years.

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 LaGrange County:

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

Arrests have generally been high in LaGrange County, though total arrests have declined since the peak reached in 2018. Abuse of different substances has also varied from year to year. Alcohol has continuously been among the most abused substances in most years, along with marijuana and meth, though meth arrests have declined in the most recent years. Cocaine and prescription opioid arrests both saw a sudden increase during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, though they have since declined and have been consistently less common than other addictive substances. Lastly, drug paraphernalia arrests have declined, but still remain high, and these arrests are most often linked to meth and heroin abuse.