It goes without saying that the addiction epidemic is harming our community. My father killed himself after a long battle with opioids and his former doctor was sentenced to seven years behind bars after overprescribing over a dozen individuals. Fəntanyl is a synthetic opioid magnitudes more deadly than the opioids that led to my father’s death. Unfortunately, the majority of people OD’ing on fəntanyl think they are consuming a different substance. It is being laced on myriad substances and can be hidden with ease. From celebrities like Lil Peep dying in Tucson to the youngest of Arizonan children accidentally swallowing pills, we need to make serious progress countering the influx of fəntanyl. Additionally, we must do what we can to reduce rates of prescription opioid abuse without demonizing those patients who genuinely do have a need for the substance.
READ MY ARIZONA GLOBE OP-ED ON THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC
I was six years old when my mother told me and my sister that our father was going on “vacation” for an extended period of time. It was only when I was older that I learned they had begun divorce proceedings after my sister’s five year old birthday party where my father had been doing hard drugs in the bathroom.
A couple of years later, after my father got into a snowboarding accident, his doctors prescribed him with copious amounts of opioids. Within a few years, my father shot himself in front of me and my sister when I was thirteen years old. The doctor who overprescribed him was subject of a federal case where many other patients overdosed or killed themselves. He was sentenced to less than a decade in prison. Shortly after this, I lost my cousin to a heroin overdose.
We must hire more border patrol agents and allow them to do their jobs. We must re-open the checkpoints in Arivaca, Sasabe, Douglas, and Yuma that were recently closed. We should be focusing our resources on points of entry and tracking down supply + distribution networks. We need to bring FOBS close to the border to the areas the cartels are crossing (ie: Arivaca/Sasabe area). Also, we must work with authorities in Mexico to stop fəntanyl-related chemicals from coming through their maritime ports via China. Naloxone should be more widely available as well to prevent overdoses.
We must give people a pathway off of drug addiction as well. Our resources are poor and at all levels of government there has been an eerie silence concerning the ongoing crisis. I would work directly with municipal, county, state, tribal, and federal departments in order to develop localized and effective solutions to get people off of hard drugs and rehabilitated into society.
Further resources:
