Pubdate: Wed, 18 May 2016 Source: Press Democrat, The (Santa Rosa, CA) Copyright: 2016 The Press Democrat Contact: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/348 Author: Marla Pfohl A LOCAL CONCERN, TOO EDITOR: Maia Szalavitz is a powerful voice for methadone maintenance ("Addiction treatment might have helped," Thursday). The fact that her opinion was printed from afar and was a half-page in length speaks to the import of this issue here in Sonoma County. Prince was an amazing artist - so were Phillip Seymor Hoffman, John Belushi, Heath Ledger and River Phoenix). As an addiction counselor working with opiate addicts, I sadly and deeply appreciate the attention that these famous people's deaths draw to the epidemic of opiate addiction and overdose. But The Press Democrat is a local paper and this issue directly impacts Sonoma County's families, schools, hospitals, the employability of our citizens and every neighborhood in our county. While Prince's death is a tragedy, it is with our residents in mind that I share the numbers published by the California Behavioral Health Directors' Association: 142 Sonoma County residents died of opiate overdose between 2009 and 2013. These are not famous people, but they are our people. May anyone who struggles with addiction find recovery and may the rest of us stop judging how they do it. MARLA PFOHL Santa Rosa - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom