The opioid crisis: It’s not an ‘us and them’ thing

From the St. John’s Telegram:

The opioid crisis: write about it, and the reaction you get can be surprisingly cruel. Supposedly normal, ordinary people will respond with statements essentially saying those who are addicted deserve to die.

Here’s a sample from a recent CBC story on fentanyl deaths: “Western society just gets dumber and dumber. Let the opioids do their job and weed these people out” and “Natural selection brought upon by themselves.”

It’s the viewpoint of people who haven’t had the opioid crisis touch their lives. It’s an “us and them” attitude that probably wouldn’t be as popular if the identifiable group was something else. Imagine, for example, anyone saying: “The elderly use up a lot of our expensive health-care resources. They’ve had their time. Just let ’em die already.” That’s a view unlikely to get much traction.

And yes, there are people who die from opioid overdoses who live in a world that’s far different from the mainstream; deaths in a world of misery and addiction others can barely comprehend.

But what’s startling about the opioid crisis is the number of cases that aren’t really us and them at all.

Teenagers who try a drug offered to them at a party and die. Suburban neighbours who are prescribed opioids after back surgery or a car accident, and become chemical prisoners. Occasional users who buy what they think is one drug, and get something else instead.

In other words, it’s something that could easily happen to you, or someone you love.

And what’s only become clear now is that there have been so many opioid deaths that a coming move to include those deaths in the overall life expectancy figures is likely to reduce our combined life expectancy nationwide. Roughly 4,000 people died of opioid overdoses in 2017, up from more than 3,000 in 2016.

The message is hard to ignore: the number of opioid deaths, along with the relative age of those dying from overdoes, is so significant that it will actually change averages for the entire Canadian population.

So, if that isn’t the definition of a crisis, what is?