The two faces of the opioid crisis

For many people, the face of the opioid crisis in this country is the scene of a drugged-out mother and father passed out on a couch with a little child forlornly looking at them. It is a heartbreaking image of a family being destroyed by addiction, and of young lives being shattered.

But the opioid crisis has another face, too, as we were reminded this week on the front page of this newspaper. That is the face of a woman who could be your friend, your neighbor or a family member, sitting calmly on a couch and talking about being cut off from the pain medications that make her life tolerable. Another heartbreaking image.

Opioids are a scourge. They have ensnared millions of people into addiction, and 64,000 Americans lost their lives to overdoses in 2016 alone. Greedy drugmakers and clueless doctors flooded our nation with poison.

Opioids are a salvation as well. For millions more, the drugs offer relief from chronic, incapacitating pain, and have given many people a chance at a better life.

This country has such a tangled, twisted relationship with drugs and drug abuse. We seem to lurch from one overreaction to another as we grapple with our drug problems.

Drugs go from miraculous to the epitome of evil, one after another. Marijuana, cocaine, morphine, heroin: all hailed, all condemned, most outlawed as dangerous. The opioids were just a continuation of this process.

Source :- fredericknewspost