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A new option in
the heroin epidemic
By Lauren Randall
A panel of nine public figures recently led a seminar on one of the
most pressing, rampantly growing epidemics Darke County has seen in
some time: heroin. The joint venture by the League of Women Voters and
the Darke County Chamber of Commerce was hosted by Edison Community
College, Darke County campus.
Greenville Police Chief Dennis Butts and Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Mark
Whitaker gave insight into the growing issue of heroin use in the
county. In 2011, 84 common pleas court cases were drug related.
Of those, 30 were drug trafficking. Those numbers have more than
doubled since, with 204 drug related cases reported in 2014, and 110 of
them trafficking cases. Now, for those who remain unconvinced of
the shadow heroin has cast over Darke County's sunny sidewalks, keep in
mind that half of those trafficking cases involved heroin.
Why this seemingly sudden spike? Why has heroin become such a
sought after commodity in the drug culture, especially in our own
county? It's cheap and it's fast. Put this in perspective;
according to Whitaker, buying a cap (or a dose) of heroin in Dayton
would be cheaper than going to the gas station in town and buying two
packs of cigarettes. In theory, a 9 to 5 desk job should cover
the cost of a heroin addiction, right? In theory, yes. In
reality, almost never.
Heroin controls the minds of those afflicted and addicted.
Working 9 to 5 at your desk becomes impossible: no heroin.
Functioning through daily life becomes impossible: no heroin. As
Whitaker put it, asking an addict to stop ‘using’ is the equivalent of
asking someone to stop breathing. You can beg someone, encourage
them, even get them to agree to quit breathing for five minutes, but
eventually a person's body will make the decision for them. It
needs oxygen, or in an addict's case, heroin; and the body will do what
it must to get it.
This is where it becomes a double-edged sword. Not only is the
addict’s every thought consumed by frantic, gnawing need for the drug,
their body has also begun to turn on them. Annie Sonner touched
on that by stating one of the most important things to understand about
heroin and its effects is the physiology related to the drug
itself. There is no stopping or turning back once a person's
entire body system has joined the fight against them. This is
what needs to be understood to figure out how to deal with this
epidemic.
The seminar clarified an effort to approach this problem in innovative
and hopefully effective ways. A new approach brought out by
Deschambeau was the use of the drug Vivitrol in addict treatment
programs. The use of Vivitrol would be an important step forward in the
treatment of heroin due to its temporary removal of the need for the
drug. This would allow a more clear minded entry process into a
treatment program, as well as a more humane situation for the
addict. Vivitrol could take the place of other "substitute" drugs
that are more costly, as well as more easily abused.
The seminar took aim at multiple angles regarding not only the effects
of the drug on the human body and psyche, but the ramifications it has
brought upon our county. Processes, systems, and protocol must be put
into place to take action, as opposed to the cycle of punishment and
repetition that has been the basis of a long and hard-fought battle
against drugs. This issue has unfortunately grown rapidly, but perhaps
its growth has helped us realize that something needs to be done, and
gives us the chance to prove that plenty of ‘somethings’ will be done.
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