INPUT ON DRUG CRISIS

Readers, community speak out about the ravages of opioid abuse.

Community, readers give ideas to solve addiction epidemic

One of the goals of our newspaper’s new Path Forward initiative is to have meaningful conversations with our community and readers about the region’s most pressing issues as we cover them.

In launching the first stories looking at the opioid crisis over the last week, we asked our readers to share their thoughts on what a recovered community would look like and we got some thoughtful responses.

“A recovered community doesn’t place a negative stigma on drug use. A recovered community doesn’t look down upon others who use drugs,” said a reader named Zack from Centerville. “A community can’t recover until it first starts seeing itself in a better light.”

We also got a lot of suggestions about what can be done to fix the area’s addiction problem, including increasing education and prevention efforts, handling it as a public health crisis, and reducing stigma.

“Make some progress towards actually healing addicts and pro- The Dayton Daily News Investigates team kicked off a new project titled The Path Forward this week, digging into the most pressing issues in our community with an eye toward solutions. We covered:

■ What will it take for Dayton to go from “overdose capital” to a model for recovery?

■ A day with Dayton’s overdose response team as they offer help to those struggling with addiction.

■ A local mother of seven’s journey from addiction to recovery.

■ How one non-profit is working to change the negative image of Dayton as an addicted community.

These stories and more can be found at