Working Toward Real Solutions Extend Beyond The Village

I have been doing some Internet searches on Solutions to this Heroin Epidemic here in our community seeking out webpages from those in larger cities. Many of the larger cities have come up with some great ideas for solutions that are working in their communities. I seek and read just to see if our community is working on real solutions towards combatting
 our local problem.

I think everyone can agree on one thing. This problem didn't get here in one afternoon. It's been going on and left unattended for a very long time here in Berkeley County. Finding real solutions to this problem here is going to take more than the village to solve it.

It is going to take entire regions at all levels working together. It's going to take all levels of community and government working together. Oh, everyone is talking about it. Talking about the problem is not the solution to it.

One thing all the other pages point out is the word, Awareness. The awareness needed is community, public, school, youth and youth groups- including scouting and churches. You can never have enough of awareness.

Drugs of all types, heroin, opiates and pills and their use and abuse; as well as addiction of these substances are dangerous. Do you realize that we are raising the next generation of kids who haven't been taught from an early age that drugs are real and dangerous?

There are so many children out there who are exposed to drugs growing up in homes where mom and dad uses, grandparents are using. Aunts, uncles, cousins are all using.

There are children who are exposed to it in their neighborhoods, sometimes in their backyard when they find needles. Children are exposed on the playgrounds and YES, in and around their schools.

Many of the next generation of kids have lost their parents or someone they love and know to an overdose. I bet if you asked each child if they knew someone who had died from an overdose I bet they do!

We still have many parents who think, not my kid, or that it isn't their child when often their kids are stealing prescriptions from them and granny. The most dangerous mindset you can have is to say or think that it won't ever be your child. OR that this can't or won't happen to you or your family!

We still have a great many to reach who say, Not In My Backyard and their next door neighbors are dealing this poison. Honey, they are using in your neighborhood. They are overdosing in your neighborhood. And, they are dying in your neighborhood.

I have found though that nothing is more dangerous than the stigma associated with all of the above. As long as stigma remains, then you know you aren't working on solutions to the problem.

You know that you need real solutions when:

The growing number of heroin and opiate addiction overdoses per day continue climbing.
The number of deaths related to heroin and opiate abuse are still rising.
The number of crimes here associated with heroin and opiate addiction continue.
The growing numbers of those addicted to heroin and opiates including those who may try heroin for the first time... today!
The growing number of children of those addicted to heroin and opiates
The growing number of babies being born into this epidemic by mother abusing and addicted to heroin and opiates

This is data and statistical facts. None of the numbers lie. We need to stop trying to serve it up on the news like it's ice cream with sprinkles.

Here in Martinsburg and Berkeley County we need more improvement on Community Awareness, Public Awareness, Youth Prevention and Awareness Programs. This epidemic is devastating families and tearing apart the very fabric of this great country of ours.

pic used: Martinsburg WV wiki

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