The opioid crisis has been at the center of debate for the past few years and people have many different opinions on how to fix it. We have seen tactics that do not work, such as the failed “War on Drugs” campaign. Now, in places like Carty County, Tennessee, states are trying a new and highly criticized tactic: educating the children and adolescents of the community.
This area is one of many that was hit hard and continues to suffer from the opioid crisis. In an attempt to combat this, they are teaching children as young as six how to administer Narcan to someone overdosing and giving Narcan doses to the children to take home because many of them have family members suffering from addiction.
The opioid crisis is the worst addiction epidemic in American history, according to a Time Special Report called the Opioid Diaries. More than 64,000 people every year die from drug overdoses, and it seems that no state is safe from the epidemic.
I cannot understand, then, why anyone would take issue with educating people to try and do something about the crisis. Children are going to grow up and be the generation that must live in this world, so why would we not want to educate them on its realities?
Some people believe we should not be exposing them to dark issues like the opioid crisis, but they are already exposed because they are in a hard-hit area. These children may have a close family member battling addiction right now, so the least we can do is give them the tools to save that person’s life should they overdose.
Education and rehabilitation are the only ways we are going to make any change. In the past, we have incarcerated people for drug use, but all that did was put people in a vicious cycle of coming in and out of the criminal justice system.
Pew Charitable Trusts looked at this issue of over-incarceration and noted that nearly 300,000 people are held in state and federal prisons in the United States for drug-law violations, up from less than 25,000 in 1980.
They also found that putting people in jail for drug offenses has a very high cost in terms of public funding, but has very little impact on actually reducing drug use. Clearly, this method based on the “War on Drugs” logic does not work.
It is time we move on from that failure of a solution and gain our compassion back. These people are not criminals who want to harm others and cause trouble. They did not choose to get addicted to opioids.
Opioid addiction can start from taking basic pain medications for surgery as prescribed, and your body can begin to feel like the drugs are necessary for survival. Opioids change the way your brain thinks and it is not a simple choice to just stop taking them — you become completely dependent.
Some argue against providing Narcan for free since, according to them, abusers “choose” to do drugs and thus deserve the consequences. That sentiment is cruel and ignorant. Odds are, addiction victims also have a friend or family member abusing drugs and it is not their fault.
CNN and Harvard University did an exclusive analysis of the opioid crisis and found that doctors who write the most opioid prescriptions get paid the most money by pharmaceutical companies that make opioids.
Big Pharma pushed the prescription of opioids and doctors got benefits for prescribing them — they are the ones at fault. Because of that, people who are addicted just have to make a doctor’s appointment and say the right thing.
We desperately need to invest more in educating the younger generations to prevent future overdoses and addictions. We also need to make expansive rehabilitation efforts our top priority to help the people currently suffering. They do not deserve to be left behind because some people do not understand how addiction works. Their ignorance leads to a lack of compassion.
