More needs to be done to combat opioid crisis

Pottstown is a borough plagued by the national epidemic called opioid addiction. This epidemic is deeply affecting younger generations and taking lives (Of the drug-related deaths that occurred in Montgomery County during 2016, 48 percent of them involved people 33 years of age and younger. Montgomery County Opioid Task Force report for 2016, page 4, 2017).

Montgomery County’s Opioid Task Force released recent reports in correspondence to last year and the numbers are staggering. Of the 249 drug-related deaths that occurred in 2016, 42 deaths (from the Montgomery County Opioid Task Force report for 2016, page 8, 2017) were in Pottstown Borough alone (17 percent of the total). This averages to one overdose death in Pottstown every nine days.

The disturbing statistics go on and on, but I wanted to detail the current environment to drive home this point: Pottstown is ridden with the disease of addiction and is in need of serious help.

Although I’m not a resident of the borough, I frequent Pottstown six days a week. I’ve witnessed addicts stoned on benches and in cars. I’ve read continuous reports of increased criminal activity: drug-related robberies, violent assaults, and I have even heard gun shots in the streets, some alarmingly close.

All of these instances make it apparent that the people of Pottstown desperately need additional access to treatment. Despite the implementation of the Naxolone Program to the Pottstown Borough Police Department just 16 months ago, PBPD now reports the highest usage (from the Montgomery County Investigating Grand Jury Report: The Opioid Epidemic, page 68, May 2017) of naxolone in the entire county. This can be seen as both life-saving and alarming. Lives are being saved, yet it seems that not enough is being done to provide adequate treatment to those suffering from addiction.

While I feel extensive jail time does not help the addicts, the lack of mandatory minimum sentences for drug dealers continues their access to opioids. Here’s the blunt common scenario: Drug dealers sell opioids. Even when caught, their jail time is minimal and often regarded as a “joke” (from the Montgomery County Investigating Grand Jury Report: The Opioid Epidemic, page 53, May 2017).

Once they are back on the street, dealers continue to sell drugs to people ridden with addiction. When the addicts overdose, sometimes police are contacted and use Narcan to save their lives.

Under the “Good Semaritan Law,” (from the Montgomery County Investigating Grand Jury Report: The Opioid Epidemic, page 42, May 2017) the overdosed addicts aren’t put in lockup, and can begin the cycle all over again the next day.

If no one intervenes with some form of treatment, this pattern will never yield.

I certainly don’t have the answer to this tremendous epidemic, but it is obvious how much the people of Pottstown need treatment.

The Naxolone provided by the Pottstown Borough Police Department is a great start, but this problem must be addressed entirely, by police, medical professionals, local committees, and by the people themselves.