Pubdate: Sun, 12 Dec 2004
Source: News-Journal (Mansfield, OH)
Copyright: 2004 News-Journal.
Contact: http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/customerservice/contactus.html
Website: http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2413

NOW IT IS YOUR TURN TO GET INVOLVED IN THE FIGHT AGAINST DRUGS.

Now the real work begins.

It's time for members of this community -- as individuals and as a
whole -- to stand up and say enough is enough. We are not willing to
stand by and watch our loved ones obtain and abuse drugs. We are not
willing to see drugs like heroin and cocaine ruin one more promising
life. We are not willing to lose one more human life to drugs.

Enough is enough.

In the last eight days, we tried to educate this community about the
horrors of drug abuse. We showed you photographs of illegal drugs and
prescription medications that are abused. We told you of the effects
of these drugs on the human body.

More importantly, we delivered this message largely through the lives
and deaths of two dozen Richland County residents recently lost.
Thanks to many brave friends and relatives of the people profiled, we
showed you the pain and anguish left behind when someone dies a
drug-related death.

Now it's your turn.

If you are a drug abuser, it's your turn to find a way to stop before
you're dead or your life is ruined. It's time to seek medical
treatment in whatever form you can find. It's time to seek the help of
family and friends to end your addiction before it's too late.

If you have a relative or friend abusing drugs, it's your turn to do
everything you can to help them stop. Don't take no for an answer.
When you feel you have done all you can and nothing has worked, you
have to try something else. You have to do more. The alternative is
seeing your loved one or friend dead.

If you are a health care provider or a social service agency that
works with drug dependent clients, it's your turn to step up and do
more to help stop the abuse. If your standard efforts aren't working,
become more creative. Try something else. We know interesting
discussions are taking place in the treatment community right now as a
result of this series. We are ready to do whatever we can to help.

If you work in law enforcement or the criminal court system, it's your
turn to recognize the disease you are dealing with when it comes to
drug dependency. Certainly, laws must be enforced. But so must laws of
human kindness and compassion. Treatment must be the first
alternative.

And it's time to begin a much closer monitoring and tracking of people
dying from accidental drug overdoses or from long-term abuse that
ultimately kills someone. We call for the medical and health community
to find ways to identify these deaths as a way of tracking success and
failures.

We hope through our series we have shined a light on a terrible
problem in our community, and that we also have shared some success
stories and potential solutions. That was our goal.

Now it's your turn to get involved. It's time for the real work to
begin.
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MAP posted-by: Derek