Confronting the Opioid Crisis
One Overdose Death is One Too Many
Real Hero Report | June 2019 | 2
It is abundantly clear at this point that
the opioid epidemic in America is not
showing signs of letting up anytime
soon. Meanwhile, bodies are piling up
as federal, state and local public health
and public safety agencies work together
and do their best to curtail and prevent
the police often pledge to partner with all
other agencies that have a nexus to the
opioid epidemic, at the end of the day,
the streets and in private dwellings, where
the police encounter opioid overdose
tragedies up close and personal.
The opioid epidemic or crisis has been
active for several years, and although
law enforcement agencies have been
investigating, arresting and prosecuting
seems to have reduced the epidemic or
the number of opioid overdose deaths.
This is not to suggest that arrest and
known as interdiction, is obsolete or
only to suggest that we need additional
law enforcement, it means we also need to
form partnerships outside the paradigm of
policing. Beyond our robust interdiction
efforts, we need to partner more than ever
with the educational community to help
them develop more and better methods
of drug prevention education, and with
the public health community to help them
develop better methods of intervention
and counselling for existing opioid
addicts.
In order to reduce the rate at which
people become addicted to opioids, we
need to open their eyes to the perils of
it before they experiment or become
addicted. The audience for that kind of
education is in schools, starting from
early elementary and likely all the way
through early college. All the interdiction
and intervention in the world is not
going to impact the epidemic unless
new victims stop entering the cycle of
using gateway drugs to opioid addiction
doubt, the education piece of the solution
is not an easy piece, but it can be best
accomplished through collaboration
between the public safety community and
the educational community.
As to intervention with opioid addicts,
we have a good idea who the next opioid
overdose death victim(s) will be, and if
something is predictable, it is preventable.
The next victims of fatal overdoses are
those who have survived a recent opioid
paramedic or doctor has administered
NARCAN®. Therefore, if a partnership
of police, paramedics, and private drug
treatment providers can reach out to
to persuade them to seek professional
drug treatment and counseling, they
inevitable opioid overdose death. Most
who are familiar with addiction know
this is not an easy sell, unless the addict
is ready, but it may be made easier by
enlisting the help of recovering addicts
who can relate and help show them
the way. Most addicts are not hardcore
criminals but rather desperate people,
some of whom have an underlying mental
illness, trying to cope with a condition
which has grown out of their control. It is
important to remember they are our sons,
daughters, husbands, wives, neighbors and
friends.
Advocates of traditional policing
may argue that it is outside the scope
of policing to get involved in drug
prevention or intervention. Nevertheless,
those who advocate community policing,
which is above all about proactive
crime prevention, as well as those who
is about initiatives that work for public
safety, understand that the police are
sworn to protect people any way we can.
Sometimes protecting people means
protecting them from hurting themselves.
Oftentimes it also means picking up
the slack when other institutions of
government are overwhelmed with a
plethora of social problems. Either way,
the police have to adjust to deal with
are sworn to protect. Right now the
opioid epidemic is a menace that must be
addressed, and the police can do the most
good by attacking it in a strategic way.