Education crucial to ending epidemic
I appreciated Attorney General Mike DeWine’s Sunday op-ed piece about the opioid epidemic, including his admonition that “we must change the culture” around drug use. This is a poignant observation of a need that actually starts with how we use ( and misuse) prescription medications.
The gateway to our opioid epidemic often begins with the misuse of opioid pain medications, and the majority of heroin users first misuse these drugs. Americans live in a drugtaking culture. We use more prescription medications than any other country and are one of only two countries to allow advertisements for prescription drugs. We expect quick fixes for our health concerns and have access to an incredible amount of information about pharmaceuticals. This has led to trends toward self- diagnosing and self- treating.
The normalization of prescription drug use is fundamental to our opioid epidemic. There are many things we must do to solve this crisis, but it all begins with educating people of all ages to use prescription drugs only as directed by health professionals, never share medications with others, store medications securely and properly dispose of them when no longer needed, and model safe medication practices for our families and friends.
Kenneth Hale Clinical professor Ohio State University College of Pharmacy Upper Arlington this museum speaks to the core values and principles on which our nation was founded. While there, I spent time in the Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery where I saw, experienced, and mourned Kevin Carter’s photo, “The vulture and the little girl.” This photo, taken in 1993, showed a collapsed and starving Sudanese toddler and a vulture standing in the background presumably waiting for her death.
This picture shook me to my core and fanned my spark for justice as I decided I needed to work to create systemic change so that children, individuals and families don’t have to experience the pain and suffering I witnessed through that picture.
Today, May 3, is World Press Freedom Day, and the theme this year is “Critical Minds for Critical Times: Media’s role in advancing peaceful, just and inclusive societies.” The press has a critical job in communicating to the public what is happening at all levels of government, in our communities, and around the world.
Without this freedom, I might never have seen that photograph. Without this freedom, we wouldn’t have journalists who dedicate their time, and sometimes their lives, to exercising this right and to working toward truth and justice.
In this “post-truth era” that we continually hear about, it is crucial that we continue supporting freedom of the press and ensuring that the truth is always heard.
Kelly Litt Columbus Hilliard