In a nearly two-hour town hall meeting, there was a lot of ground to cover about Mississippi’s opioid crisis.
But one point the professionals — both from the law-enforcement and health-care communities — emphasized at Tuesday’s gathering in Indianola is that the first step to dealing with drug addiction is to recognize it as a disease, just like diabetes.
Although certainly cracking down on drug dealers, including the white-coated ones who knowingly write multiple prescriptions for addicts, is part of the solution, it’s only part of it.
“There’s no way we will ever arrest ourselves out of this problem,” says John Dowdy, who heads the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, the state’s primary drug enforcement agency.
The bigger part of the solution is getting addicts into appropriate treatment and giving them and their families hope that the grip of addiction can be broken before it squeezes the life out of them.
It’s a sad truth that rehab is not a sure-fire cure to addiction. Nor are 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous.
But no cure is possible until the addict seeks help. Reducing the shame and stigma associated with this disease could prompt them to take that first step.
Tim Kalich - Greenwood Commonwealth
