The United States is in the midst of an epidemic. The small county I work in reports 3-5 calls per day for opiate related overdoses. Treatment programs from around the area have huge wait lists and people are dying every day. Experts at a recent round table discussion on the problem are predicting that it will only get worse as we tighten physician prescribing of opiates, as opiate dependent people will switch to the cheaper, more accessible heroin to fight off withdrawals.

This, and other reasons are why we are designating time and space to exploring this growing concern. Heroin and opiates are not an inner city problem. The largest growing base of new users are 20-something, middle class, Caucasians, especially women. This problem in already in your backyard if you live in the suburbs or a rural community.This is not to say opiates doesn’t affect those in the city but the myth that it’s inner city black males that are the largest consumer and dealer of illicit drugs in not supported by research.

Over the next several months we will explore the following topics related to the opiate epidemic that is sweeping across the nation.

  1. Who? What? Why? Where? – An overview of the current state of this problem
  2. Understanding how opiates change the brain
  3. Tolerance/Withdrawal/Detoxification
  4. Medication Assisted Treatment – Methadone & Suboxone
  5. What does effective treatment look like and what are the barriers to accessing it
  6. Harm Reduction (needle exchanges, narcan, and condoms)
  7. Mass Incarceration and the War on Drugs
  8. Co-occurring Disorders
  9. Family Systems and Substance Use
  10. Intersection of class, race, gender, sexual orientation
  11. Education and Employment
  12. What is the role of the church?

U.S. drug control strategy has largely been focused on law enforcement. Police have done their jobs and have done them well. In the last 20 year we have seen record arrests, drug seizures, and incarceration of drug offenders and yet the drug problem is only getting worse and more deadly, not to mention wasted valuable taxpayer resources. It’s time to collectively create a new way of addressing the drug problem in our country. What we’re doing now clearly isn’t working.