Drug & Alcohol Rehab For Lawrenceburg, Indiana

Sitting on the Indiana side of the state border with Ohio (along the picturesque Ohio River), Lawrenceburg is a small city with a long history. For many years, Lawrenceburg served as a trading port on the Ohio River, and it still maintains many of the historical buildings that add to its unique charm. Today, Lawrenceburg serves as the seat of Dearborn County and technically falls within the Greater Cincinnati Tri-State Area.

While many towns and cities in southern Indiana rely almost exclusively on manufacturing, Lawrenceburg is a unique city with a diverse local economy. The economy deals in utilities, alcohol distillation (even gaining the nickname “Whiskey City”), glass manufacturing, and several major entertainment businesses. Lawrenceburg is home to a popular ski area, as well as a riverboat casino, both of which help bolster tourism and seasonal revenue for the city.

With a population of 5,194, Lawrenceburg is the largest city in Dearborn County. Though the median household income in Lawrenceburg falls well below the state median at just $52,778 per year, the city boasts a relatively low cost of living. Additionally, Lawrenceburg has a poverty rate of 10.7%. While this is somewhat high, it still falls below Indiana’s average poverty rate of 12.3%. [1]

In spite of its stable economy and beautiful river views, like most cities in Indiana, Lawrenceburg struggles with the ongoing substance abuse epidemic. Based on the most recent data, marijuana, alcohol, and meth are the three most commonly abused substances in Lawrenceburg. 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 Lawrenceburg, Indiana. And remember, if you or a loved one are fighting addiction in Lawrenceburg or the surrounding area, you can always reach out to Addiction Rehab Centers for help.

Drug and Alcohol Addiction in Lawrenceburg

Lawrenceburg’s substance abuse data is collected and aggregated at the county level. This makes it easier for the state of Indiana to evaluate trends in substance abuse and enact new measures to reduce arrests, overdoses, and fatalities in the future. However, this methodology makes it more challenging to identify individual cases in a given city, including Lawrenceburg. This is because all of the cases originating in Lawrenceburg are combined with the cases originating in other Dearborn County towns and cities, such as Aurora (pop. 3,750) and Greendale (pop. 4,602).

However, Lawrenceburg’s location and proximity to Cincinnati make it an easier transit point for the illicit drug trade. As a result, it’s estimated that as much as 20% of all substance abuse cases (arrests, overdoses, and fatalities) recorded in Dearborn County originate in Lawrenceburg, even though the city only accounts for a little over 10% of the county’s population.

While Lawrenceburg is a small city, Dearborn County is home to more than 50,000 people. Consequently, it sees relatively high numbers of fatal overdoses each year. Unlike smaller counties that may see drastic shifts in fatal overdose statistics from one year to the next, Dearborn County’s data has remained consistent up until very recently. 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.

Between 2016 and 2022, fatal overdoses reached their lowest point in 2018 (11 deaths) and their peak in 2022 (19 deaths). During this period, the county saw double-digit fatalities each year, with the majority of years recording 16 or more deaths. However, a sudden drop in fatalities began in 2023 and continued into 2024. It’s important, however, to note that the data for both of these years is still provisional. While this sudden decline in fatal overdoses could be a sign that the epidemic is easing, it could also simply be a lack of recent data being released by county authorities. Only time will tell if this downward trend will continue.

As a general rule, non-fatal overdoses provide a more accurate picture of substance abuse in a given city or county. Non-fatal overdoses are far more common than fatal overdoses, which means that we have more data to analyze. Additionally, non-fatal overdoses are easier to collect via hospital discharges and emergency department visits involving addictive substances. The table below shows the relevant overdose data in Dearborn 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.

Between 2016 and 2020, three of the five years saw non-fatal overdose counts above 100. Since 2019, the number of non-fatal overdoses has declined nearly every year. When looking solely at the data from 2016 and 2022 (the most recent year with finalized data), it would appear that non-fatal overdoses have declined by 40.3%. While the data for 2023 and 2024 is still provisional, the numbers have continued to decline. However, based on the unusually low reporting for 2024, it is safe to assume that there are still more cases to be added to the dataset.

It’s also important to analyze the relationship between fatal and non-fatal overdoses. In 2016, Dearborn County recorded 121 total overdoses (fatal plus non-fatal). That year, 17 overdoses were fatal, accounting for 14% of the total. By 2022, there were a total of 81 overdoses. That year, 19 of which were fatal, accounting for 23.4% of all overdoses. This indicates that the rate of fatal overdoses is increasing quickly, even as total overdoses are declining. However, we will need to wait until the latest data from 2023 and 2024 is finalized to see if the fatality rate will continue to rise.

Types of Substance Abuse in Lawrenceburg

In 2023 and 2024, marijuana, alcohol, and meth were the three most abused substances in Dearborn County. Alcohol is widely abused throughout much of Indiana, though statistics have shown a shift away from alcohol toward drugs like meth, marijuana, and opioids in recent years. Southern Indiana, in particular, has seen increased instances of meth abuse and addiction, while the state as a whole has seen more people abusing marijuana.

These trends are based on arrest and re-arrest data collected by counties throughout Indiana, including Dearborn County. While this doesn’t account for all cases of substance abuse, it does offer a glimpse into the different types of substances being abused and shows how trends in substance abuse have changed over time.

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 Dearborn County:

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

Total arrests involving addictive substances followed a “head and shoulders” pattern, starting at a lower point, reaching a peak in the middle of the dataset, and then declining in more recent years. Arrests peaked at 686 in 2019 before declining to 404 in 2022. Between 2016 and 2022, total arrests declined by 19.5%. However, it’s unclear if arrests will go up again in 2023 and 2024, as the provisional data indicates that 2023 has already recorded at least 23 more arrests than the year prior.

In any case, alcohol and opioid arrests have declined over the period outlined in the table above, while marijuana and meth arrests have increased over the same period. Cocaine arrests have remained low but have nonetheless increased by a small margin. Finally, drug paraphernalia arrests have declined, but remain high; these arrests are typically associated with meth or heroin abuse.