Deaths due to drug abuse tripled in Schuylkill County over the past year, coroner Dr. David Moylan told county commissioners Wednesday.

"As of today, we processed 75 drug-related deaths in the county since the first of the year, as opposed to 25 in all of last year," he said.With recent changes in the law making it easier to prosecute drug dealers who have sold drugs to people who subsequently died, Moylan's office is doing more autopsies, and the cost is mounting.Moylan came before commissioners at a workshop meeting Wednesday to ask for an additional $88,927 for his budget."We have several cases in the pipeline to bring to trial. However, to do that and get a conviction, we have to do autopsies on all of these people," he said."This is a tremendous expense," Moylan said.Sending a body to Reading, Berks County, for autopsy costs about $2,000, he said.Having it done locally by pathologist Dr. Mary Pascucci halves that cost, Moylan said."That's the main reason we've been over budget," he said.In order to cut costs, Moylan said, his office has contacted Atlantic Diagnostic Laboratories to see if its fee schedule would cost less.Given the increase in drug deaths and suicides - there have been 36 so far this year which Moylan called a "near record" number - he also recently interviewed another pathologist to help with forensic cases.Other county coroners are also feeling the budget pinch due to the increase in drug deaths, Moylan said.Last year, the drug overdose death rate in Pennsylvania was 26 per 100,000 people, an increase from the reported 2014 rate of 21 per 100,000 people, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.Commissioners' Chairman George F. Halcovage Jr. and Commissioner Frank J. Staudenmeier voted in favor of Moylan's request.Staudenmeier noted that $50,000 of what Moylan requested would be for autopsies.The money, said county Finance Director Paul E. Buber, would come from the operating contingency account in the general fund.Commissioner Gary J. Hess voted against it, citing escalating costs for that office.Hess questioned the need for "virtual autopsies" (CT scans of bodies) that Moylan does on a routine basis, especially when they are followed by traditional autopsies.Moylan said the virtual autopsies, which are about half the cost of actual ones, can sometimes eliminate the need for actual autopsies, which can cost up to $950. Further, he said, the last 50 virtual autopsies he's done have been free of charge because the county caps the total at $18,000 a year.Moylan said cases against dealers are increasing, with a corresponding need for autopsies."In hopes of blunting this epidemic of opioids and fentanyl, we're working with state police and the district attorney's office trying to bring some to prosecution under established Pennsylvania state of deaths due to delivery of a controlled substance," he said.Moylan said that changes in the law relieve district attorneys of having to prove malice, or intent to kill, in prosecuting drug dealers accused in overdose deaths."It's just enough that they sold a controlled substance that resulted in death," he said.