Keywords
or Terms: Opioids Epidemic; Addictions; New Hampshire; South New Hampshire University;
Criminalizing Addition; Appalachian States; Governor Jeb Bush; Governor Kasich;
Governor Chris Christie; Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina; Expanding
Affordable Care Act; Medicare; Oxycodone Addiction; Kroger Pharmacy;
Cutting State Treatment and Addiction Budget; Political
expediency; and, Pragmatic Solutions
We can all agree that a healthy citizenry is critical to a
thriving Democracy; if not, the spate of 2016 White House aspirants reflecting
on personal, family and public experiences in the past week, on the question of
epidemic of drug addiction in majority of American cities, especially in the Appalachian
States, where opioid addiction has reached a pandemic level, would have been inconsequential.
Listen to Republican Governor Jeb Bush: “As a
father, I have felt the heartbreak of drug abuse ... I never expected to see my
precious daughter in jail. It wasn’t easy, and it became very public when I was
governor of Florida, making things even more difficult for Noelle [his
daughter]. She went through hell, so did her mom, and so did I.”
Speaking at a Tuesday Republican Party convened New Hampshire
Forum on Addiction and the Heroin Epidemic held at Southern New Hampshire University,
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, another Republican hopeful, reflected
on her step-daughter and addiction this way: “If we continue to criminalize
drug addiction, we're not treating it. And the system we have today is part of
the problem, not part of the solution… We now have the highest incarceration
rates in the world. And the majority of people we have in prison are people
like my daughter, Lori, struggling with addiction." Touting Ohio’s prison
programs to fight drug use and addiction, Ohio
Governor Kasich, another Republican hopeful, said: “Ohio prison programs give
inmates skills to focus on when they leave prison and help decrease the
likelihood of recidivism due to drug use. If you are interested in changing
your life and learning a new skill, we’re going to give it to you. We don’t
want to waste a human life.” Hear Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey: "I
think I'm just more experienced on it [fighting drug addiction] than the rest
of them. I think I spoke about it much sooner than the rest of them did, but in
the end, voters get to make that decision."
Our current alarming problems of addiction and dependence or abuse
of prescription drugs, especially the opiates are probably coming home to
roast. American Families in the Appalachian States as West Virginia, and parts
of Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, New
York, Maryland, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama can tell you a thing
or two about Opioid’s epidemic; and, the day-to-day struggles of citizens
fighting addiction to prescription drugs. In the State of New Hampshire, opiates
deaths have been up by close to seventy-six percent since 2014; and, 2013 State
data on hospital emergency room visits for heroin overdose has tripled. We are
now at a threshold of pandemic opiates overdose and addiction in some of our
states.
It is our duty to do everything that we can to ensure that
citizen’s addiction to opioids and prescription drugs do not consume our
democracy. Maybe that is why discussions on using social norms to fight adolescents’
addiction, the place of community-based interventions and broadcasting dynamic
and practical information to fight addiction to opioids and other prescription drugs
are not only necessary, they are now unavoidable if we are to get ahead of
these challenging problems. Pharmaceutical and Drug companies, including unscrupulous
health professionals in some of America’s big cities have made drugs use and
abuse relatively too easy; and, are probably part of the problem. The desire to
make quick profit and push the can down the line have made many negate their responsibility
to the profession and society. Some hard hit poor areas and state governors
continue to wonder why Alcoholic and Drug Administration in collaboration with Drug
Enforcement Administration, and Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau have
not moved into some Appalachians States to arrest some culprits, who continue
to facilitate illegal drug trade, dispensation of narcotics, and by inculpable design,
facilitate the growing drug overdose and addiction in many of these areas. To some
degree, we have failed to recognize and report drug sales and dealing in our
communities and by default, remained accomplices in the mayhem that are ravaging
some adolescents and adult souls, hooked on narcotics, opiates and prescription
drugs.
Adolescent alcoholic and tobacco abuse that once seemed insurmountable
problems in many big cities are receding comparatively; however, without new
creative designs in public policy formation to combat a new demon, America may be
losing another generation to opiates and prescription drugs addictions. Prescriptions
drug abuse in some small and medium size cities are up so are the addictions to
heroin and methamphetamine. The growing menace is gradually creeping from the
poor to middle and upper income households, as it continues to manifest itself
as no respecter of any boundaries: income strata, race, social and political
stature or agenda. The level of opiates addiction and prescriptions drug abuse
in some Appalachian States have grown so fast and so rapidly as to overtake alcoholic
and tobacco abuse; colossally far outstripping budgeting and funding capacities
of many smaller Appalachian states public health in some instances.
At a 2013 Opiate Conference in the State of Ohio, workshops
and technical papers discussed how to turn the tides against addiction to opioids,
including subjects as supporting family through pregnancy and delivery; prescribing
guidelines to preventing fatal overdose and combating opioid epidemics; medicated-assistance
treatment; place of regional psychiatric hospitals in treating opiate
addiction; integrating vocational rehabilitation with addiction treatment; medical
examiner and toxicologists perspectives on the rising heroin addiction; and,
law enforcement strategies to combat epidemics of opiates and heroin use. All
of these initiatives can create a culture of resistance and embracing a new direction
of progress in fighting the now, newer American killer. Maybe that is why Ohio’s
Governor Kasich’s New Hampshire forum comment that, if you get mentors in the
schools telling kids about their potential, about what education is about, the
fact that they're loved, about the fact that they've got great potential, changes
everything," maybe one of the way out of the menace of prescription drug addiction
and drug overdose in America.
For those doubtful of Ohio’s Governor Kasich’s proposal of
dedicating more money for drug rehabilitation and expanding Medicaid under Affordable
Care Act to accommodate fighting drug addiction and overdose, an
assessment of his recent effort in the realm of fighting Opioid epidemic,
as documented by Ryan Donnelly, a former abuser of Oxycodone, with the Calm
Support Organization in Ohio, will suffice: “Governor
Kasich visited a Kroger Pharmacy in downtown Columbus to draw attention
to the plans he now has to further curb the opiate issues in his state. The
governor announced a plan that will spend up to $1.5 million during 2016 to
integrate the Ohio Automatic RX Reporting System, also known as (OARRS), into
the prescription drug monitoring system they are currently using. To strengthen
the fight against opiates, the new system will track prescription opiate
history and show trends to be able to detect the risks of addiction or abuse to
these particular kinds of prescription medications” Although his efforts in the
State of Ohio may not be asymptotic of the experiences in other Appalachian
States or across America, there are reasons to believe that his efforts may
germinate other plans that can help Americans, especially those in dire needs,
fight through addictions and dependence on prescription drugs.
Now, the needy gritty of this problem: 2016 presidential
aspirants or politicians may be talking about how better to fight this pandemic
of drug addiction and overdoses, however, cutting state treatment center’s
budget will not yield dramatic result and will hardly help addiction rehabilitation.
Yes, drug addiction is dilapidating for families, friends and the public; however,
we cannot be two-faced in our approaches to fighting these problems, if we
really want to overcome them. We cannot continue to blame doctors for over-prescribing
prescription drugs, while pharmacies and pharmacists are not keeping up to
refusing to refill over-prescribed drugs to one patient. We cannot fail to call
the judicial system to order as they fail to bring drug dealers, over prescribed
dispensers and other drug use facilitators, to book. New Jersey Governor, Chris
Christie is known to have cut funding and budgets for treatment centers and
programs; however, he wants America to believe he has been ahead of the
problem. How can an aspirant who failed to support efforts to fight this ravaging
problem at the state level, either through defunding of corrective public
health initiative or encouraging alternative treatment initiatives, deliver better
results at the federal level?
It is good for Presidential aspirants to hub-nub over national
issues at discussion forums as the one completed last Tuesday in New Hampshire.
It is also okay for them to spend as much money as they like on campaign
advertisements for their brand of opinions and politics. However, the public is
not looking for a fluke or deception; they are looking for pragmatic solutions
to the economic, social and political problems facing America. Further, American
voters are looking for leaders with experience, knowledge and temperaments of a
reflective leader, not one attuned to lip-service. America is looking for a
record of tested achievements in the spheres of issues that impact their lives
directly. In addition, the public is tired of improper classification of
problems or experience for political expediency; an approach or strategy many
aspirants are accustomed.
Prescription drugs and addiction treatment programs are great tools
that can be used to accomplish and encourage users to get off the path of
self-destruction. As a presidential aspirant, leader and or politician, you may
want to mount programs and initiatives that address these problems. If treatment
programs and policy initiatives are misdirected or undefined for political
expediency, including funding or defunding, based on the reclassification or
redefinition to help save money or balance long-term deficit spending, it is
going to take time and distance to make a difference in the lives of those
directly and immediately, impacted. If you create and design programs that are
unfunded, no matter how great an initiative you have, you are unlikely to make
much of a difference, either in the short or long run in resolving this problem.
Programs designed to incentivize unwanted behavior, must not only be talked
about, they have to be funded and supported to achieve appreciable results.
No comments:
Post a Comment