Posted on 03/27/2018 8:45:38 AM PDT by Kaslin
EAST LIVERPOOL, Ohio -- Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, and John Lane, chief of police of this small town in Columbiana County, have more in common than you'd think.
Both believe that the fight against opioid addiction will require faith-based ministries that can work through peer-to-peer programs, which connect former addicts with current ones. This scourge has ripped through the country.
In an interview with me the day after President Donald Trump unveiled his plan to combat the country's opioid epidemic in New Hampshire, Conway said: "It's like anything else. When you look at something, you say, 'Do I like it, and is it like me?' When it's peer to peer, that really is the key. First of all, it reduces the stigma and the fear people have about 'How do we even get started? Who will judge me? Will someone arrest me?'"
Chief Lane is on the same page. His town of East Liverpool became the poster child of the opioid scourge thanks to his decision in 2016 to post a photo of two adults overdosed and slumped over in the front seats of a car with a 4-year-old boy in a dinosaur T-shirt looking on from the back seat. The world stopped in its tracks at the raw human loss in that photo. It's exactly why Lane decided to post it.
"It was in that moment that the child stopped becoming the center of that family's world, and drugs replaced that love and caring they were supposed to give him," said Lane.
It was shocking for the rest of the country, which was not used to seeing something Lane sees every day, sometimes several times a day. The hopelessness captured in that photo echoed across the country as hundreds of other cities, towns, suburbs and rural expanses saw themselves, or family members or neighbors, in it.
Lane credits the peer-to-peer efforts of Family Care Ministries, a faith-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to help people with addictions.
Conway said: "The peer to peer is so incredibly important. There are faith-based organizations that I've met with across the country where they've been doing incredible work for decades, so they're not new."
She added: "This kind of crisis is new. We've always had, obviously, a drug problem in this country for many, many decades, but these faith-based organizations, they've been equipped to deal with different circumstances. They're already there on the front lines, and they're trying to respond to this crisis thusly."
She said yes, it is incredible to have the juice of president, the White House and the first lady behind the effort. "But we still respect and herald, really, the fact that those who are closest to the people in need know how best to administer to those needs," she said. "So it's going to be at the local and community level where the health professionals, the law enforcement, the faith-based organizations, certainly the elected officials, the opinion leaders, the schools, the grieving families, the great stories of triumph where people have gone through drug treatment, and indeed recovery, can come forward and talk about it."
The plan to end the opioid epidemic Trump laid out last Monday includes improved access to treatment, a public awareness campaign aimed mostly at youth and, of course, a wall between the United States and Mexico to stem the flow of illegal drugs made south of the border.
Trump was strident in his call to end the menace of drug addiction in America. He said: "if we don't get tough on the drug dealers, we're wasting our time. ... And that toughness includes the death penalty. ... We have got to get tough. This isn't about nice anymore."
"A lot of folks have talked about the president calling for the death penalty," Conway said. "That is for some high-level drug traffickers, according to the Department of Justice's jurisdiction and discretion."
Currently, traffickers can bring in massively lethal doses of the synthetic drug fentanyl and not face significant sentences. "What the president is saying," Conway explained, "is it makes absolutely no sense that you have people coming with fentanyl. You need a trace amount of fentanyl to kill one person."
In January in Pittsburgh, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement team designed to disrupt online opioid sales with the goal of shutting down those marketplaces.
Conway said: "Attorney General Sessions has done yeoman's work on shutting down parts of the dark web where people are buying opioids, on disrupting the illegal flow of these illicit opioids that are being synthetically created in labs in China, we're told, coming through Mexico, and also just backing the blue to make sure that our first responders know they have the resources and the support that they need."
Lane tells the story of a local man who watched his best friend overdose on heroin and, instead of calling the paramedics to get him help, first robbed him so he could buy himself some heroin. Lane said: "He forgot how to be a person. He only knew how to be an addict.
Both Lane and Conway want the same thing: a road to hope. Both agree that a big answer has to be made up of many smaller ones, such as the peer-to-peer and faith-based programs that can fly under the radar but are having an impact.
One year ago, it wasn't unheard of for there to be several overdoes in East Liverpool in just a handful of hours. Lane credits the city's See Something, Say Something campaign and its work with Family Care Ministries: "When people realize there is hope and the person sitting across from them has been where they are, it makes a difference. There is not much more you can add to that."
It takes a village?
We just had a young man my sons age OD here in my small rural community.
I knew the guy, but had no idea he was into that crap. And it was basically ignored by the local 3 page newsrag.
Heard an interview on the radio with a guy who worked in rehab. He painted a very dire picture of the problem. Rehab only seems to work on less than 25% of those who go into it.
Told a story of a small group that watched a friend OD and then went ahead and shot up with the same sh*t he used. 2 more of them died.
They are left with few options once they get into that crap. Prison, rehab or death
I knew 2 of the 3 kids and they came from what we would all call, 'good families'.
All three had both a mother and father living at home, they all graduated HS and/or college and seemed just like every other kid I watched grow up in this neighborhood.
It breaks your heart and there are no easy answers, no smart ass one liners, that I usually spout.
Prayer helps.
And in my business, we remove logjams in a large creek downstream from a pretty crappy town.
My son and my nephew are in the water hooking cables and have to watch for used needles floating in the water.
Last time, they found a whole bag of needles and homemade pipes, so we now keep a sharps container on the jobsite.
Ditchdigging ain’t all fun and glory
Another example of the ‘Fast and Furious’ franchise? How better to reach deep into ‘Red’ America?
Rehab? Maybe but rehab preached the idea that relapse is part of recovery. That kills people
There is hope and there is recovery out there. It ain’t easy but it is simple
There are not easy answers as you say.
What I know is that no one knows what goes on behind closed doors. The young feel immortal. You got something new? Sure I’ll take it. It might be great.
They don’t foresee long term consequences
I’m tired of going to funerals of those who wouldn’t get it
There is the scene from Spencer’s Mountain where James McArthur drowns or nearly does.
Creeped me out when I first saw it as a kid.
My daughter is coming up on two years clean... we almost lost her... she truly is a REAL miracle...
It is correct that faith based programs succeed at a far better rate than than secular... not only given the faith aspect.. but also due their length usually being a year or more. It takes at least 7-8 months for an abuser brain chemistry to get back to a normal state.... so length is important.
If it weren’t for prayer... and places like Teen Challenge and Women At The Well... my daughter would likely be dead.
They run on shoestring budgets and most don’t charge if you can’t pay... they ain’t easy... but they are hope to those in need of a life line... both abuser and family.
Prayers to all those suffering addiction... and the families trying to hold it together....
Been a while since I saw that movie. Guess I don’t remember that scene.
The part that got me was Grandpa getting in the way of a tree they were downing. As my father got older, we had to watch out for him doing something like that, since we cut many thousands of trees a year
I’m 99% sure of the movie.
Just now, I looked up IMDB for the title.
So glad you got her back. That’s gotta be really tough to go through. I can’t imagine what that would be like
I’m thankful every day that neither of my kids got into anything like that.
Caught up in the maelstrom that is the opioid crisis are those who suffer from chronic or immense pain. The knee-jerk reaction was for the manufacturers, distributors, doctors, and pharmacists to reduce (if not eliminate) the availability and prescribing of Fentanyl (and other opioid-types) to those who truly are in need of this fantastic drug.
My wife suffers from chronic and acute pancreatitis and often has difficulty in obtaining the medicines she needs due to this heightened awareness/panic over Fentanyl and Dilaudid. Most pharmacists will simply say that they do not have enough on hand. One even flat out told us that they were not ‘comfortable’ delivering the drug. This puts people in a desperate situation, often leading to illegal drug use to attenuate the pain.
No one can simply go off of the drug ‘cold turkey’ and not suffer severe consequences, possibly even dying. The scrutiny is causing many doctors and pharmacists to simply no longer prescribe these medicines without considering what they are doing to their patients.
Yes, it literally has changed my life... for the better. She was not supposed to live... and recovered from 80% paralysis, blindness and brain damage to be perfectly healthy...
The only explanation I have is prayer... and asking God to either heal her as a testament to his grace and power or take her home...
We were told by the doctors to prepare for a new normal with a severely handicapped child... God said otherwise....
I get emotional just writing this... this drug is a scourge on humanity... although I know my daughter is responsible for what happened... I know these dealers are dealing death and they should be treated in a manner reflecting such.
The really sad thing is that many of the rehab centers seem to like it that way so they can keep generating revenue. ObaMaoCare set no limit on the number of times they could go though rehab. A retired law enforcement friend told me that most of them just wanted to get their card punched so they could go back to their self destructive lifestyle.
Singapore has a three strikes and you are out rule. Addicts which fail the third time are exiled to one of the small islands off the coast. A couple of times a month, a supply boat backs in and unloads food. The rest of the time, they are expected to fend for themselves with rudimentary tools and the like to construct their own shelter.
After six months, they can apply for rehab again. Those few accepted back into the program usually don't fail it again.
True words. Prayers for you and yours
Even though chemically one might be mentally free within a year it usually takes a solid five to really get the brain back to normal
Glad your daughter is doing well
Touchy freely stuff us the problem, not the solution.
Liberalism. It’s deadly.
Dead dopers means fewer break-ins.
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