No Respecter of Persons
By Albert B. Kelly
If you get a chance, check
out the PBS program “Frontline” and their coverage of the opioid epidemic (i.e.
prescription pain pills and heroin) raging across this country. Dig into the
details and a few things stand out.
In 2014, slightly more
than 47,000 people died from drug overdoses and that number is rising. Stop and
think about that; a full stadium at Citizens Bank Park for a Phillies game
means we’re talking 43,647 people- assume another 5,000 souls standing in line for
hotdogs and souvenirs and that’s how many overdoses we’re talking about for
2014.
The number of people who
overdosed specifically on heroin and painkillers in 2014 was 29,467 (63%) - the
yearly average is roughly 27,000. Consider that a sold out Sixer’s game at the
Wells Fargo Center has 19,500 people; the old Spectrum held 18,000.
I use stadiums and arenas
because sometimes it’s hard to visualize “47,000” or “27,000 if you’ve never
seen that many people gathered in one spot. Most people have been to concerts
or a ballgame so if you can picture that, or something close, you can begin to
see the size of the problem.
Of course these numbers
only deal with overdoses; they don’t include the souls struggling with
addiction, the fallout in families, or the impact on communities. But here’s
the thing, we may finally be in a place where we’re willing to try some new
approaches to deal with this epidemic.
I say that, because beyond
just having a body count, the other thing that stuck out in Frontline’s report are
the stats on who was being hit the hardest and where the biggest impacts are now
being felt. That’s no small thing.
Historically, opioid abuse
meant heroin and heroin was largely seen as the scourge of inner cities and
more specifically, the scourge of poor blacks and Latinos in those cities. So
long as it was viewed in this way, it was something easily ignored as a symptom
of life in the hood.
And so long as it was confined
to the hood, it was easy to dismiss the need for treatment options and the
funding to make it happen. That meant that what was happening in the inner
cities was largely dumped in the “crime” bin and dealt with mostly through a
law enforcement strategy, not medical treatment.
Today, that’s not so easy
to do because the epidemic is widespread- impacting all groups. In 2014, if
we’re talking painkillers, the overdose rate among whites was 7.9 per 100,000
as compared to 3.3 for blacks and 2.2 for Hispanic/Latino; if were talking
heroin, it was 4.4 for whites, 2.5 for blacks and 1.9 for Hispanic/Latino.
Heroin can no longer be
stereotyped as just a ghetto-junkie thing; sadly it’s the back end of painkillers-
the opioids that come in the form of prescriptions from a doctor- it’s where
people go when pills can’t be found and it’s now a suburban and rural
middle-class thing.
My point is that we’re all
in this together; this epidemic is not a respecter of race or class and now
that it’s actually seen as an epidemic, well maybe now we can focus on
effective treatments and alternatives on the medical side as opposed to
incarceration.
There’s reason for hope. Three
weeks ago, the President proposed $1 billion in new funding over the next 2
years with $920 million for states to expand access to medication-assisted
treatment which matters a lot because neuroscience tells us that much of
addiction is about genetics.
In addition to
prescription drug monitoring, the plan also calls for increasing the use of medications
like Suboxone, which stop opioid cravings and block the opioid “high”. This can be done on an outpatient basis.
Given the limited number of rehab beds and the costs, medication-assisted
treatment makes sense.
And lest we think it’s
just the young; opioid overdoses among 35-44 year-olds was 10.3 per 100,000 and
among 45-54 year-olds, it was 11.7 per 100,000. Nor are seniors immune;
overdoses among 55-64 year-olds was 8.5 per 100k and 2.7 for those 65-74 years
old.
This devil is not a
partisan one and certainly no respecter of persons. Lives are being lost,
families are being destroyed, and communities and townships are being savaged
by addiction and everything that comes with it.
As I said, we’re all in
this together now and if we speak with one voice, we can ensure that we have
all the tools available to fight this epidemic.