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When we started this blog in June 2013 there were infrequent articles and stories about the prescription drug and heroin epidemic. It wasn’t unusual for weeks to go by without any significant news coverage of this epidemic tearing apart families and communities throughout our country. What a difference four years makes. From this week alone I would like to share with you three featured articles that address this crisis from distinct perspectives.
The first article appeared in NJ’s Asbury Park Press and discusses the complicated issue parents face about sharing their own personal experiences with drug use and experimentation. The second story is from The Inquirer, a Philadelphia newspaper, and explores how a labor union has been directly impacted by the tragedy of opioid dependency and heroin addiction. It further describes how the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is taking their message to the streets. Finally, in what most observers are calling a monumental turning point, Governor Hogan of Maryland has declared a state of emergency in response to the opioid crisis engulfing his state.
PDFNJ will continue to share with each of you the latest developments in the fight against opiate dependency and heroin addiction in this blog.
from app.com:
- The opioid epidemic has made a parent or guardian's answer to the inevitable question from a child "Have you ever done drugs?" more consequential given the deadliness of heroin.
- Studies differ on how open and honest to be, but it's clear that lying can harm relationships.
- The Partnership for Drug-Free Kids advises parents to know what works best for their child.
“Mom, have you ever done drugs?”
When Justine Frank’s son Jon posed that question, she responded the way many parents do when their kids put them on the spot.
"I looked him right in the eye and I lied to him," Justine said. "I had the best of intentions, but it was the wrong decision."
from Philly.com
Standing before his fellow Teamsters in June, Travis Bornstein shared the story of his 23-year-old son, an accomplished golfer and bodybuilder who became addicted to prescription pain pills after elbow surgery and eventually succumbed to a heroin overdose in an empty field. For the next two hours at the national meeting in Las Vegas, truckers, dockworkers, and warehousemen told of losing aunts, nephews, and fathers to addiction.
Newly focused on an issue that is ravaging its members, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters on Thursday plans to challenge one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical wholesalers, demanding that AmerisourceBergen Corp. investigate its own sales practices and potential supply chain diversions, and factor compliance into its executives’ pay.
from WashingtonPost.com:
REISTERSTOWN, Md. — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Wednesday escalated his administration’s response to the opioid-addiction crisis, declaring a state of emergency and committing an additional $50 million over the next five years to beef up enforcement, prevention and treatment services.
Hogan (R) signed an executive order calling for the state of emergency, an instrument many jurisdictions use to coordinate anti-opioid and heroin strategies. The action fulfills a campaign promise he made in 2014 but temporarily shelved after taking office in favor of other legislative and executive initiatives.
The governor, who lost a cousin to addiction years ago, said the declaration underscores what he described as “an all-hands-on-deck approach” to growing rates of heroin, opioid and fentanyl use.