Heroin Epidemic – What Can We Do

Recently there were some horrible pictures circulating of a man and woman who had overdosed in their car in Liverpool, Ohio. In the back seat their 4 year old child sat witnessing the horror (the child was taken into custody).

The police said they had decided to make the images public “to show the other side of this horrible drug”. (We are not going to show the images here, but you can Google “pictures of overdose in Ohio”)

It is in the Columbus Dispatch every day, on the news every night and even 60 minutes featured Ohio as having the most serious problem.

As a new member of “Drug Free Worthington”, I was invited to an event with many Ohio officials and learned some interesting facts:

• Heroin used to be a very small problem contained in the inner city but now is a huge suburban and rural concern.
• 95% of heroin addiction starts with pain medication initially prescribed by the family doctor.
• Prevention education for all drug and alcohol abuse is most effective when it starts in kindergarten.

Most of the evening was spent on how serious the epidemic is and ways to handle overdoses.

My thought (as always) is how do we prevent this issue.

When a patient first seeks care for pain, Governor Kasich’s Guideline’s mandates “Non-pharmacologic” treatment first.

This includes chiropractic care, massage or physical therapy.

That sounds like a great idea to me. Let’s find the cause of the pain, correct the cause and prevent another episode. These guidelines have been in place for about a year but prescribing hasn’t changed.

So what can we do?

1. Instead of expecting health to come out of a bottle realize it comes from within.
2. Begin teaching our kids that every time there is a physical, emotional or social problem, the answer is not in a pill.
3. If you or a friend or family member is experiencing pain, seek the cause! Our office is the first place to start. We will do a detailed consultation and examination to determine the cause and find the right solution.

It is really up to all of us to change our quick fix, grab a pill for everything mentality.

We can solve this problem now and prevent it in the future.

Think how many lives we can rescue, how much heart break  we can prevent and how much money we can save.

Let’s stop this epidemic together!