Ignoring addiction’s toll
To the list of tragedies linked to the coronavirus pandemic, add this: It is apparently causing an increase in substance abuse, including deadly addiction to opioids.
Drug deaths in America rose last year, reversing the promise of 2018’s decline, which was the first in a quarter century. Now, according to preliminary federal data released this week, 2020 is on pace to see a record number of deaths from drugs.
The Centers for Disease Control reports that nearly 72,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year — more than ever died in a single year from car accidents, AIDS or gun violence. And on top of 2019’s 5 percent year-over-year growth in addiction deaths, an analysis by The New York Times suggests that deaths have risen by another 13 percent this year.
Abuse of prescription opioid medications fueled the growth of the addiction epidemic in recent years, but the new surge seems to be driven by fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, as well as cocaine and methamphetamine.
Yet we must not let statistics cloak
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the calamity of addiction in the anonymity of social analysis. If we assess the nation’s opioid crisis only by the numbers, we fail to see the awful loss to all our communities, and in families, known to us all, now shattered by loss — rich and poor, people of all races and backgrounds, each touched by this scourge.
For the death toll says nothing of the less-visible victims of America’s opioid epidemic, who are lucky only because they have so far survived: those whose careers have been lost, whose families have been scarred, whose hopes have been dashed. They may still be saved, if we can extend adequate treatment to them in time.
But as millions of Americans have lost their jobs, they also have lost the job-linked health insurance that covers addiction services. Meanwhile, the
Trump administration is still cruelly trying to kill the Affordable Care Act, used by many states to expand Medicaid, which provides free addiction treatment to low-income Americans.
State aid, too, is at risk, owing to the pandemic-caused skid in tax receipts. The administration of Gov. Andrew Cuomo has warned it will impose a 31 percent cut in funds earmarked for nonprofit treatment providers unless a federal COVID-19 relief package replaces lost state revenues. President Donald Trump and his enablers in Congress have so far been hostile to providing such help, though they were quick to prop up airlines and luxury hotel chains that were hurt by Covid-caused shutdowns.
Those local programs already are struggling. Some residential treatment programs have been closed, and outpatient programs are greatly curtailed. Social isolation can be lethal for people with addiction disorder.
A year ago, there was palpable hope of beating back the tragedy of addiction. Unless public support is marshaled that might convince a seemingly numbed federal government to care, we will face loss upon loss as addiction’s grip on America grows even stronger.