The solution for the opioid crisis begins with us all


Last week, I attended the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s presentation, “Heroin’s Deadly Presence” and read several essays about the opioid crisis this weekend. All recounted horrifying statistics about Wheeling, West Virginia and Columbus, Ohio. All of them were wrenching, but none of them offered much in the way of ideas about how to combat this crisis.

Only one idea was offered. Call on the schools to educate against this plague.

This call is short sighted.

Please do not kick the can of this crisis into the schoolyard! The opioid crisis was not started by the schools and cannot be cured by the schools. Instead, it represents a breakdown in our entire social system. This crisis belongs to the entire community.

Is anyone else as disturbed as I am by the advertisements for Movantik? Do you think this means that prescribed opioids have become so normalized that their GI side effects can be discussed with impunity on prime time TV?

Heroin and opioid addiction represent a failure of our health care system, of doctors and big pharma, the criminal and justice systems, and the lack of treatment centers. Poverty, hopelessness and despair are signets too. They are the result of addiction, if not players in the cause.

Schools are a cog in this big ecosystem and they can play a part in addressing these needs, but it will take all the players, all the parts and all the cogs to work together to truly turn this sordid mess around.

Ohio State can help too. Dean William Martin, of the College Public Health, Director Roger Rennekamp, of OSU Extension, and others are leading the charge.  Let’s get behind them and make a positive difference in our community, for everyone’s sake!

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