OT Contributor Network: Heard Tell Podcast w/Dr Keith Humphreys On The Opioid Crisis

The latest episode of Heard Tell podcast has Dr. Keith Humphreys discussing the opioid crisis from Appalachia to Senate hearings, and what we can do about it.

The Opioid epidemic is still raging through communities even as other events dominate the news headlines. But with over 90K dead from overdoses in 2020, there is no end in sight to the crisis. We turn to Dr. Keith Humphreys who has been an addiction expert for many years on his recent testimony before a US Senate committee on the opioid crisis, how the new synthetic drugs like Fentanyl are a whole new level of deadly challenge, why “it’s just addicts getting what they deserve” fails not only on a human level but in cost to communities as well. We also ask him as a former advisor to the Obama White House on drug policy what government can/can’t do about addiction issues, and as a psychiatrist what everyday people should be doing to help each other in the darkest of human trials. Also, as a native West Virginian, we get his thoughts on the ongoing civil trial in federal court of drug manufactures by Huntington, WV and how that might change the landscape in the fight against Big Pharma and the Opioid Crisis going forward.

One of the pieces mentioned in the podcast was published here in Ordinary Times:

So, when someone wants to try something like the family drug treatment plans, I’m all for it. The numbers and statistics just make folks numb, so perhaps a better way to explain it is visually.

Graphic of Drug Overdose Deaths per 100K, 1968-2019.Graphic created by XNeon. Used by permission.

That black pit centered on West Virginia and Appalachia as if fate had dropped a nuke on it is glaring. Along with a few other areas of America, seeing a visual representation of so much death, so much needless, pointless death, ought to shock even the most cynical. But it doesn’t. There is no restitution for so many deaths, generational damage both physical and emotional to the people involved, or the lingering effects to what is in danger of becoming a lost generation in a state that can’t afford to lose any of its population. Not even a multiple zeroed judgement in the ongoing drug cases can “fix” the opioid crisis in places like West Virginia. Those looking for redemption to the opioid crisis in the marbled halls of the Robert C. Byrd Courthouse are going to be in for a disappointment, regardless the verdict.

But then upstairs in the Nicholas County Courthouse, and in similar programs, there are shafts of light shining through the darkness.