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Court News Ohio
Seeking
Solutions to Ohio’s Opiate Crisis
By Stephanie Beougher
May 7, 2015
Bottle after bottle of pills were collected at a recent drug take-back
event at the Rhodes State Office Tower in Columbus. More than 104
pounds of unused or expired over-the-counter and prescription
medication were taken out of medicine cabinets and disposed of properly.
Andrea Boxill, deputy director of the Governor’s Cabinet Opiate Action
Team, explained the importance of holding the drug collection.
“Over 80 percent of people who become addicted to heroin, start with a
pill. While heroin is something that has to be developed, cut and
illegally brought up, pills aren’t. Pills are prescribed by doctors and
for many of those individuals they start by going in the medicine
cabinets of their friends or family members,” Boxill said.
Drug overdose deaths continue to be a major health concern in Ohio. New
figures from the Ohio Department of Health show 2,110 deaths in 2013
were from unintentional drug overdoses, and opiates, prescription or
heroin, accounted for nearly three-quarters of the overdoses that year.
“We’ve known for some time that overdoses for 2013 would be higher than
overdoses for 2012, but, when you see the numbers on paper, it is very
shocking and distressing,” Ohio Supreme Court Specialized Dockets
Program Manager Orman Hall said of the figures.
Hall managed treatment programs for more than 25 years, and now manages
the Supreme Court program – working with drug courts that assist
defendants with treatment, instead of prison.
Last June, judges from 83 Ohio counties and their community partners
attended the Ohio Judicial Symposium on Opiate Addiction to discuss
promising judicial practices and options for treatment, including
medication-assisted treatment. This year, family court officials and
their community partners will be invited for a symposium.
“The emphasis for this year’s opiate summit is working on policy
development for parents who are struggling with opiate addiction and
have a very real possibility of losing their children because of their
inability to deal with their addiction problems,” Hall said.
The symposium will be held in Columbus on June 23.
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