Developments on opioid epidemic reason to think we’re at turning point

The phrase “cautiously optimistic” is one we rarely use, if at all.
OK, maybe if you’re talking about spring arriving sometime this month we would.
But on so many of the issues that ravage our state we cannot help but be skeptical, if not cynical. Take our roads, vital health statistics, state government or acid mine drainage.
We all often resign ourselves to accepting this status quo, with little option but to accept it.
That lack of optimism also includes the day-to-day tragedy that is the opioid epidemic. Yet, sometimes things happen that lend themselves to the hope that’s needed to end this crisis.
In recent days, On a national, statewide and community level there was reason for hope.
Nationally, the nation’s surgeon general last week spoke out on the need for more people to carry the opioid reversal medication naloxone.
Research has shown, he said, that when naloxone and overdose education are more widely available to community members, drug overdoses decline in those commnities.
Statewide, Gov. Jim Justice signed a bill in late March that limits the duration of addictive pain medication prescriptions.
The Opioid Reduction Act limits initial opioid prescriptions to a seven-day supply. Prescribers are also encouraged to prescribe the lowest effective dose for treatment. The law takes effect June 7.
It also requires practitioners, before issuing a prescription, to take a thorough medical history and develop a treatment plan.
Finally, in perhaps the brightest spot of all, Cabell County has seen a 55 percent decline in overdoses per month since September.
We note this because in a state that has the highest overdose death rate in the nation, Cabell County led West Virginia in overdoses. In just two years — from 2015 to 2017 — overdoses spiked from 480 to more than 1,800. If the current trend holds, Cabell could record about 1,150 this year.
No, that’s no reason to celebrate but it is a sign these numbers are going in the right direction. As Huntington’s mayor said, the decline is the result, not the conclusion, of years of hard work.
One conclusion that we have achieved in West Virginia is that everyone knows there is a problem, an enormous problem.
We also know it’s not just a problem for the medical community, first responders, the courts or lawmakers. It’s everyone’s problem, whether it’s already broken into your house or devastated your family.
In other words it’s up to us to keep hope alive.