“What shall we do then?”
It’s a question that spans the ages on complex issues about the social condition.
That quote above is found in Luke, Chapter 3, Verse 10.
Leo Tolstoy’s book title and that same question — “What then must we do?” — mulled social conditions in 19th century Russia.
We raise this question today not in light of repentance or poverty, that are eternal questions of the human condition.
But in respect to the kick-off of six regional public forums in West Virginia to help determine the statewide response to substance abuse.
Our question is “What more can society do, or are we obligated to do, to treat and prevent drug abuse?”
That question is not only pointed at the direct victims of drug abuse, the users and addicts, but its indirect ones, too, including babies born addicted to drugs and foster children.
The state Department of Health and Human Resources, Office of Drug Control Policy and the Governor’s Council on Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment will host the forums.
Public comments can be submitted at the forums, which begin today in Beckley and will end Oct. 24 at the Robert Mollohan Research Center in Fairmont.
Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention point to fewer Americans dying from drug overdoses in 2018, after decades of increases.
The decline is slight — from 72,000 in 2017 to 68,500 in 2018 — yet after years of this scourge getting worse all the time this is positive.
Slight as it is, the 2018 downturn still implies that efforts to improve the availability, access and efficacy of drug treatment — and preventing addiction altogether — may be showing results.
But to the question of what more must we do: Everything humanly, legally, ethically and fiscally possible.
Still, we are torn about society’s responsibility — the guilt of not doing enough on one hand and the harsh realities of addiction and recovery on the other.
For the record, we extend a blanket responsibility to children, who are the collateral damage of the opioid crisis.
It’s imperative that government, schools, nonprofits and even the private sector go the distance to intervene in cases of children impacted by drug abuse.
Some say we have already lost a generation to the opioid crisis and we would not disagree with that assessment.
There can be no retreat from providing for drug treatment, but at the very same time we must save the next generation.
So, the question now becomes not “What must we do?”
But, “How can we prevent addiction and its fallout in the first place?”
