Last fall, I listened as a mother named Cary Dixon told her family's story at a forum I convened in West Virginia. It was heartbreaking. Cary's adult son has struggled with a substance use disorder for years, and she described the pain that families like hers have gone through. "We dread the next phone call," she said. "We don't take vacations for fear of the next crisis. We come back from vacations because there's a crisis." Cary and her family are far from alone. As the use of prescription drugs has increased over the past 15 or 20 years, so has their misuse - -- as well as the wreckage caused by other opioids like heroin. In fact, four in five heroin users started out by misusing prescription drugs, and then switched to heroin. As a consequence, between 2002 and 2013, the rate of heroin-related deaths in America nearly quadrupled. More Americans now die of drug overdoses than in motor vehicle crashes. In Alaska, overdoses claimed 124 lives in 2014 alone. [continues 493 words]
We Must Treat Addiction Like Any Other Disease and Aim to Prevent and Treat Last fall, I listened as a mother named Cary Dixon told her family's story at a forum I convened in West Virginia. It was heartbreaking. Cary's adult son has struggled with a substance use disorder for years, and she described the pain that families like hers have gone through. "We dread the next phone call," she said. "We don't take vacations for fear of the next crisis. We come back from vacations because there's a crisis." [continues 590 words]
