Parents have come, pleading to find help for their children.
Representatives from a wide spectrum of entities are involved.
And when the forums and surveys went out, a number of this newspaper’s readers came forward as well.
We’re all together in the battle against opioids.
The Bladen County Opioid Task Force has wrapped up its series of meetings, collected the surveys, and picked up valuable data from the school district.
Up front, we’ll go ahead and say we wish there had been more response and varied representation across the demographics. But the information at hand — and the task force is thankful for what it has — is what the consultants with Addiction Consulting and Training Associates will work with in helping craft a strategic plan.
The task force is likely to see that plan at its January meeting. We’ll tell all about it when it happens.
This is an important time for Bladen County. We’re fortunate to have received funding to make this effort through the Kate B. Reynolds Foundation. We’re fortunate to have dedicated members of our county’s staff and government, and those two dozen or so representatives that come to task force meetings, working on the problem.
Bladen County is not unique in the fight against opioids. On a drug take-back date in October, North Carolinians turned in 38,541 pounds of unwanted or expired medications; nationally there were 883,000 pounds. Nearly 5,000 lawmen across the country participated and nearly 450 tons were garnered.
Folks, that’s a big dent into what could have gone elsewhere — including a portion on the streets and roads of Bladen County.
For most recent numbers provided by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention through 2017, overdose deaths involving opioids — and that to include prescription and illegals like heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl — was six times higher than in 1999.
And that’s two years ago. We’re confident, listening to presentations by various stakeholders like lawmen and Southeastern Carolina Crossroads, that most likely and unfortunately the rate has continued to rise in the last two years.
This effort by the task force is certainly a step in the right direction.
We’re anxious to see what ACT brings to the table in a strategic plan. Arguably, the main thing will be participation.
This isn’t a problem to be solved solely by educating our students, our elderly on what to do with unused meds, or by lawmen trying to apprehend those who take advantage of the gaps between those two segments of people. It’s not even a problem tied only to those people. Opioid abuse, often, is hiding in plain sight.
It’s a problem to be solved by an entire community, one that cares about what happens to people. We know that’s the bottom line on residents of Bladen County, that despite any and all differences we truly do care about each other.
Our unity can win the battle.