‘The Sober Cat’ aims to prevent drug use
Upper St. Clair retiree’s book focuses on kids
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sometimes Patricia Petrusik wondered, as she helped recovering addicts to find jobs, how different things might have been for them if the right special someone had taught them how to say “no” to drugs the first time.
Now she hopes that her black cat, Jazmine, can be that special someone for today’s kids.
In September, the retired counselor in the state Office of Vocational Rehabilitation published “The Sober Cat,” a series of short workbooks for children from kindergarten through elementary school in which Jazmine wanders a world strewn with intoxicants and hopes that her humans make smart choices.
“Kids learn about drugs one way or the other,” Ms. Petrusik said, as she sat in the dining room of her Upper St. Clair home. “How do you want your kids to learn about drugs?” she asks — from the TV, from other kids, or through a book read under the supervision of a teacherorparent?
The U.S. is now home to several million abusers of opioids. In 2016, 63,600 Americans died from drug overdoses, including 650 in Allegheny County, and around twothirdshadusedanopioid.Thereisno sign of improvement, and experts worry that the problem could be passeddowntothenextgeneration.
In other public health crises “the successful inroads have been made in prevention,” said Ralph Tarter, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy who studies addiction.
“We are going to have to teach kids that you should not do everything you can do, and that you can make wise choices,” Dr. Tarter said. “They know much more than you think they know by the time they get into first grade.”
Efforts are underway to reduce overdose deaths. The county Department of Health is hiring new staff to work with communities hit hard by overdoses. The county Department of Human Services is creating new rehab options for families with opioid users. UPMC Mercy is reaching out to overdose survivors and helping them to get into treatment. In the city, the South Pittsburgh Opioid Action Coalition held an addiction resource fair last month.
County Health Director Karen Hacker, though, has said that there hasn’t been enough attention to prevention.
Local governments tend to follow federal funding priorities. As prescription opioid abuse has segued into an explosion of heroin and fentanyl overdoses, the federal government has increased anti-drug spending to more than $30 billion annually, but just 5 percent goes to prevention. More than 40 percent goes to treatment, and around 50 percent to law enforcement and interdiction.
“The reason we’ve got [the overdose] problem is because nobody in America will invest significantly in prevention,” said J. David Hawkins, a professor with the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington’s School of Social Work in Seattle. “We can’t just wait until people need a shot to prevent them from dying from an overdose. That’s not prevention.”
His Communities That Care program teaches local leaders to choose from among 65 proven prevention programs and implement those most likely to address their drug problems. There’s nothing wrong with asking elementary school kids for their thoughts on drugs and teaching them basic skills that will help them to make thoughtful