The Opioid Epidemic - A.K.A The Crisis of Addiction

Meanwhile

https://www.usnews.com/news/article...ses-in-states-that-legalize-medical-marijuana

 

Ross County is a war zone but it's not just there. We have a problem with heroine in our high schools in both the affluent communities and the inner city.

One of the projects I was working on was in a detention facility. Talking with one of the employees, they told me just one hit of heroine can get you addicted. One.

I have no idea how to even begin to combat the problem. Is narcan the answer? It certainly saves lives but it doesn't begin to treat the addiction. It's akin to putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.

 

There was an NPR story that was a candidate for the "Let's All Laugh at Kansas" thread ...

http://www.npr.org/2017/03/30/52177...embrace-the-sacrifices-that-come-with-support

But for all the anger and anxiety over possible budget cuts in policy circles, in Strong City {Kansas}, quite a few people actually embrace those cuts.

"They've got to make cuts somewhere. Somebody's going to get cut, somebody's going to bleed a little bit. That's just a fact of life, but to get things back into balance," says Jim Fritch, who works at Clark's Farm and Home Store.

Jim Fink runs the store, and he agrees. Both Fritch and Fink voted for Trump.

"If you ask me would I rather see the money go for our water plant, or to possibly try to control our borders and the security of our nation, the security of our nation is more important to me," Fink says.​

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[/suppressed snickers]

However, this story hits on this thread, too...

Rural communities do have their own pressing needs. Wages tend to be lower and health care harder to find. Opioid addiction and suicide are much more common. Federal programs address rural ills but quietly enough that they can be overlooked by people historically leery of anything coming from Washington.​

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Anything, that is, besides a wall along the Mexican border. And defense spending.

Who needs water and addiction treatment when you got the ass-kickingess army in the world?

 

I lost 2 family members to opioid overdose last year within a week of each other. Sadly, we think the death of the first put the second over the edge. She had been addicted to pain killers for years prior. And this side of the family is very tight knit, with lots of support. You just never know. On the plus side, the brother of the one family member is now going to rehab and trying hard to stay clean.

 

I do some volunteer work around here that puts me into contact with recovering (well, ideally) addicts. For training, I sat in on some Masters degree-level drug counseling classes at a nearby college. There are interesting studies about how addicting certain drugs are. The most studied is still alcohol. Basically, around 15% of all people who drink will develop a serious dependency. That number has been consistent since Prohibition. There's nowhere near enough data to come up with a similar number for heroin yet, bit it's looking to be well over 50% and possibly as high as 80%.

 

One of my sons' friends ODd with the syringe still in his arm...

 

Big Pharma and the medical profession own a huge bit of this crisis.

 

They do....and their lobby to kill MJ legalization is exacerbating the problem. They DGAF

 

Great article from the NYT last january on this topic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/us/opioid-crisis-epidemic.html?_r=0

Opioid addiction is America’s 50-state epidemic. It courses along Interstate highways in the form of cheap smuggled heroin, and flows out of “pill mill” clinics where pain medicine is handed out like candy. It has ripped through New England towns, where people overdose in the aisles of dollar stores, and it has ravaged coal country, where addicts speed-dial the sole doctor in town licensed to prescribe a medication.

Public health officials have called the current opioid epidemic the worst drug crisis in American history, killing more than 33,000 people in 2015. Overdose deaths were nearly equal to the number of deaths from car crashes. In 2015, for the first time, deaths from heroin alone surpassed gun homicides.

And there’s no sign it’s letting up, a team of New York Times reporters found as they examined the epidemic on the ground in states across the country. From New England to “safe injection” areas in the Pacific Northwest, communities are searching for a way out of a problem that can feel inescapable.​

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Unfortunately she was in the medical profession. We assume that's where she started getting her drugs.

 

Yikes.

 

https://www.amazon.com/World-Hurt-M...56&sr=1-1&keywords=Barry++meier+world+of+hurt

A short book by NYT journo Barry Meier, whose been on the trail of the pain-pill industry for decades. Best $1.99 I spent when I was sitting in on those courses. Even though it came out in 2013, it's a bit dated, BUT it makes clear that the rise of heroin addiction was already happening, and that it was going to be especially hard on people already dependent on pain medication.

 

Some of the major drug distributors are now being sued over the problem.

LINK

 

http://www.boppchapel.com/book-of-memories/2888640/Sammartano-Isabella/obituary.php

Not from Chillicothe, but certainly relevant.

 

The Washington Post did a series of articles on some of the most egregious distributors. The DEA up until around 2013 was having some success at prosecuting some of them and then started getting pushback from higher-ups in the DEA and the prosecutions dropped off.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/inve...7c704ef9fd9_story.html?utm_term=.6b904c7672bd

 

1. Gotta greatly reduce pain killer use.
2. Need to increase funding to mental health - there is a connection to the addiction. Right now the two things are mutually exclusive.

I used to work in the recovery field. Our clientele went from homeless urban black men to white rural/poor city and young nearly overnight about 5 years ago.

 

A very brave family.

It’s her family’s hope that her passing will bring awareness to heroin addiction as a treatable and organic disease, and to drug proliferation in our communities and homes. In honor of Bella’s short and wonderful life, please consider a donation to the Harris House Foundation, harrishousestl.org.​

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Normally, when you see the obituary of someone from their 20s through their 50s containing the phrase "died suddenly in their home," it means they overdosed. And its understandable that survivors would go that route, given that the stigma is still very powerful. So I have to admire this family's courage.

 

It takes strong shit to get over addictive shit. That's not cheap.

 

Forgot the shot, but Medicaid was paying around $900. per monthly treatment.