Fighting heroin epidemic demands bold action

Delaware has a heroin problem, and it’s getting worse.

As the Cape Gazette reported in 2012, heroin use rose sharply after state and federal crackdowns on prescription-pill abuse that made pills much harder to get.

Tightening rules on prescriptions slowed increases in pill abuse, but heroin quickly replaced prescription opioids. High-grade heroin is now available throughout Delaware and the nation; not surprisingly, deaths from overdoses have risen sharply, in Delaware and nationwide.

A Prescription Drug Advisory Committee found Delaware recently ranked fifth in the nation in the rate of opioid prescriptions and had the ninth-highest drug overdose rate in the nation. The committee also found Delaware deaths from heroin nearly tripled over a four-year period, from eight deaths in 2009 to 23 in 2013.

Officials recently rolled out new state initiatives to curb the heroin epidemic, calling for a formal review of heroin and opioid deaths, with an eye toward what could have been done differently, to prevent future deaths. The plans call for improved monitoring of prescriptions, with more followup with patients suffering chronic, long-term pain.

The plan also calls for more treatment facilities and new initiatives to try even more drugs to assist people trying to kick their habits.

A fourth initiative encourages police departments to allow officers to carry drugs such as Naloxone that have been shown to prevent deaths when an overdose is suspected.

These steps are welcome, but with state and federal officials identifying heroin use as an epidemic, these steps seem slow and tentative. Sussex County has already seen infants born addicted to painkillers and a toddler who took heroin to daycare. If a toddler has heroin in her backpack, even by mistake, this problem is out of hand.

What’s lacking in all these initiatives is urgency. Fighting heroin will require resources. It will require more treatment facilities and specialists and new research efforts. It will also require a broad base of citizens who demand an end to heroin use and the crime that comes in its wake.

Fighting heroin is a marathon. It’s time to get in the race.