Posted on 08/06/2017 10:41:29 PM PDT by Timpanagos1
Beth Genslinger doesn’t fit the stereotype of a victim of a drug epidemic. She thoughtfully sets out glasses of water for her guests before they arrive and wears a teacher’s warm, open smile: She retired from Valley View Junior High right before her granddaughter was born, after 33 years of teaching. Her husband was an insurance agent and, to his children’s friends, a formidable breakfast chef.
Their son, Andy, died of a heroin overdose in October 2015. The same thing happened to his cousin Daniel Weidle less than three months later, the day after Christmas. A third cousin had died after a battle with opioids in 2005.
The Genslingers live in Germantown, Ohio, a close-knit country community nine miles north of Middletown on Ohio State Route 4. The median family income here exceeds $50,000; less than 6 percent of the population is under the poverty line. These houses have porches, and their porches have flags. Beth grew up here. Her parents live right next door; they have now lost three grandchildren. The family is what a neighbor calls “preeminent” in the community.
The opioid epidemic does not discriminate. Unlike crack or meth, there is no single cultural profile. National statistics suggest that more men than women use, and the demographic is largely white. But the rich are affected almost as much as the poor, those with college degrees alongside high school dropouts.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
I read a story the other day about a manufacturer in Ohio trying to hire over a hundred employees for good paying jobs, but is having a hard time finding people that can pass drug tests and simple math tests.
I’ve suffered from pain for years, but some days are worse than others. I’ve always had a prescription for pain meds, but I only take one when I’m desperate. No addiction problem. Exercise and massage therapy usually works best.
In the 1980’s I watched my brother kill himself over the long term with drugs, I kidnapped a friend and held him hostage until he was clean, and saw many very good people have their lives ruined, not by drugs, but by a draconian legal system.
All of that inspired my eventual career path, and I see the impact of drugs and the war on drugs almost every day.
The answer to the overall problem is not political, it is not judicial, it may not even be scientific, the answer is much more complex than all of that.
I think a lot of it is found in places where the jobs have been sent overseas and whole towns are left with unemployed people collecting welfare and disability, losing any motivation to find somewhere else to go.
We have a meth problem in Texas. Seems like doctors in Texas aren’t as generously giving out opioid scripts here as in other places, but it’s available on the streets.
“I think a lot of it is found in places where the jobs have been sent overseas and whole towns are left with unemployed people collecting welfare and disability, losing any motivation to find somewhere else to go.”
That could be a big part of it and also explain the urban crack drug epidemic of the 1980’s.
Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop.
“Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop”
Well then, the Devil must have relocated his workshop to small town America.
I believe it is a big part of it. I’m glad Trump is trying to bring jobs back, but employers are complaining that they are having a hard time finding people that can pass drug tests. The problem has become circular so hopefully we can find a way to stop it.
Maybe that is one of the reasons factories have moved out of the USA.
Too many people that show up to work high.
My brother passed away at 47 from an accidental painkiller overdose. Absolutely devastating to the family, especially our 83-year-old mother.
Ultimately, he loved the high more than he loved living or loved anything else.
Probably not by the ton, but I'm reminded about this guy when my dad was stationed at SJAFB back in the 1970's. Some say the heroin was smuggled inside the bodies if dead service members, but Ike Atkinson denied it.
Interesting read from Wikipedia
Could be, or maybe jobs were shipped overseas so more people started getting high. :-) maybe if we quit paying people to do nothing after a period of time, and they had to work or starve, they would make other choices.
“No sympathy for anyone claiming chronic pain. I struggle with most steps a n d have for years.”
Sad to see someone make a blanket statement like that.
“Not something I understand.”
That’s obvious.
The addiction to opioids is not about pain, the addiction to opioids is about getting high.
It has a lot to do with how the medical industry works. Americans go to the doctor expecting a prescription to fix the problem. When the problem is chronic pain the prescription is addiction. Other countries either don’t go to doctors for pain, or the have more of a personal relationship with their doctors and they discuss how lifestyle plays into pain and less pill oriented ways of dealing with it. Most folks here don’t even know the doctor prescribed them an opioid and they’re now on the path to addiction.
“The addiction to opioids is not about pain, the addiction to opioids is about getting high.”
For some sure it’s about getting high, but that’s painting with too broad a brush.
For others it’s relief from physical, torturous pain. In a sense, yes, you are addicted, but more accurately the person is dependent on the medication to keep the pain to a manageable level and feeling ‘high’ has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Mexican pot growers turned to poppy cultivation once they knew pot was being legalized in the United States. The corrupt Mexican government, or course, loves all that money from American users flowing into their economy.
The secret to killing the heroin epidemic is the the cultivation and the distribution. Sabotage the cultivation by seeding the fields with DNA engineered seeds that will produce plants that do not create opium. Every plant they pollinate will have the same problem. It would be biological disaster.
In the distribution, I would have satellites monitoring the distribution system in each step from field to refinement to shipments to the drug hubs. Then we hit them hard.
Agreed. And it is heartbreaking.
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