Opioid awareness should include effects on kids

The point of public service ads shouuld be to spare at least some families the trauma of drug-driven separations.

News about the opioid crisis is rarely good. And fortunately the delivery of the bad news has led to improvements in controls on prescriptions and in the treatment of those affected.

A recent report indicating a 5% drop in drug overdose deaths in 2018 vs. 2017 preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is good news — a potential drop of 4,000 deaths in 2018 from 2017.

But the positive is strongly mitigated by the fact that a 5% decline from 2017’s more than 72,000 overdose deaths meant that the crisis claimed the lives of more than 68,000 Americans in 2018, according to the CDC’s preliminary data for the two years.

Recent revelations that generic drugmakers kept selling painkillers amid warnings they were feeding the epidemic similarly cut both ways: The numbers could lead to accountability for the three drugmakers facing a landmark lawsuit.

But the fact that 76 billion opioid pills were produced and shipped between 2006, when death rates began to accelerate, and 2012 suggests a missed opportunity to stem the crisis.

The most heartbreaking recent news about the opioid crisis is its impact on children.

“The opioid crisis caused an increase in the number of kids in foster care,” Kathleen Roach, executive director of foster care and permanency for Diakon Adoption and Foster Care in Topton, told the Reading Eagle recently.

Nationwide, about 1 in 3 children who enter foster care are placed as a result of parental substance abuse.

Roach explained that drug use often leads to the problems that cause officials to remove children from their homes and place them in foster care.

Drug use can impair a parent’s judgment — addiction can lead to the loss of a job, unpaid bills and an inability to afford or remember to buy food — leaving a child neglected, or leads to abusive behavior toward a little one.

And this is not merely a coincidence supported by anecdotal evidence.

The numbers of children placed in foster care, Roach noted, climbed steadily from 2007 through 2017, and the spike was directly linked to an increase in parental substance abuse or addiction, with heroin and other narcotics being the drugs of choice.

The fact that children are primary victims of opioid abuse is a story worth telling — one our public officials in Harrisburg and Washington should consider featuring in public service announcements.

The “Just say no” to drugs message of the 1980s is often derided for seeming to dismiss the idea that addiction is a disease. And that era’s commercial featuring an egg (“This is your brain.”) hitting a frying pan and sizzling (“This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?”) is seen as simplistic.

With respect to our more enlightened times, there is something to these ads that should be recovered. Addiction begins with a decision. Even granting that a decision to engage in self-destructive behavior can be driven by feelings of desperation others might not understand, a factual counterargument is at least worth a try.

A TV commercial noting that one-third of children placed in foster care are there because a parent used drugs could be a real public service.

If it could be dramatized to wake up even just a few parents to the risk involved, it would be worth the price of producing it and airing it.

Such an ad could show a child being taken from a home because of drug use. It could note the one-third statistic. Then it could end with a narrator saying, “Before you take that next drug, imagine your child coming to you with this question,” then cut to a child asking, “Do you love getting high more than you love me?”

Those who produce public service announcements could improve on the idea, but they should not ignore the impact of this deadly crisis on children. Even when we’re not at our best, all of us love our kids. Surely some would resist the temptation of drug use if the high stakes of use and abuse were made clear in compelling and dramatic fashion.

Informing parents of the consequences of their actions is not the same as blaming them for the disease of addiction. No doubt some parents who’ve surrendered their children to foster care because of drug abuse will overcome their addiction and deservedly win back custody.

The point of public service ads aimed at avoiding the initial surrender would be to spare at least some families the trauma of drug-driven separations. Surely it’s worth a try.