The opioid epidemic in America is a widely acknowledged problem, and it disproportionately affects rural communities. Is it a public health problem, a legal issue, or both? And to what extent is the problem driven by circumstances particular to rural life?
Rural doctors acknowledge the difficulty of getting patients to physical therapy and rehabilitative care for their injuries, and often resort to prescribing opioid pain medicine instead. Their ability and their incentives changed drastically in the late 1990s as Purdue Pharmaceutical introduced OxyContin to the market, aggressively marketing it as a safe method of approaching an under-treated problem-- chronic pain. In 2001, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations released a new set of guidelines mandating a much greater focus on treating pain than before in order for hospitals to receive accreditation. Sixteen years after the Joint Commission's revised pain guidelines, the unintended consequences for rural America are clear. Opioid overdoses, including those from users of heroin who switched from prescription pain pills, have increased the fastest in the rural states of Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Alaska. As the standards for prescribing opiates relaxed, rural areas suffered from an accelerating spiral of addiction, ending in many instances with the user switching from prescription pills to heroin, and ultimately incarceration or death.
The political will to enact legislative solutions has been haphazard. Politicians on the right and left cannot seem to agree whether to treat the problem as a legal issue or as one of public health. As many of the rural states hit hardest are run by Republicans, many of them have turned to well-worn tough on crime rhetoric that polices the boundary between rural and urban areas in the harshest way possible.
In rural counties, some prosecutors are turning to drug-induced homicide charges against heroin users who have provided heroin on which another person has fatally overdosed. In the far exurban orbit of St. Louis, rural prosecutors like Thomas Gibbons of Madison County, IL couch their use of the tactic in language of protection of family and place: "I fear for the existence of the county my sons grow up in.We intend to absolutely make an example of these people in public." The policy rationale of DIH charges is that prosecutors can leverage the threat of serious jail time to induce addicts to inform on their dealers. However, it is often addicts who procure drugs for a group and themselves overdose who are charged with this crime. By 'othering' addicts (see Gibbons use of the phrase "these people") and claiming that those charged are conspiring with non-locals, these charges alienate and exclude the addicts of these rural communities.
Right wing pundits and politicians are also visibly casting about for ways to characterize opioids and heroin as a problem 'imported from urbanity'. See Maine Governor Paul LePage's racist and demonstrably incorrect statement that the heroin problem in his rural state was mostly the fault of black city-dwellers.
Commentators who don't resort to the claim that opioid problems originate in the Hogarthian metropolis resort to familiar claims about personal responsibility and moral failings. See, for example, J.D. Vance's claim that heroin addiction in rural America is about misplaced priorities and a decline in community values. Or David French and Kevin Williamson's vitriolic one-two punch declaring that "The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die."
In contrast to these claims about the moral failings of the rural addict, public health literature provides a clearer-headed view. Recent writings on rural opioid addiction in the public health literature identifies a confluence of geographical factors that spur the phenomenon. Rural areas have high rates of opioid prescription for chronic conditions. Kinship networks can encourage diffusion of bad behavioral health practices. And opportunities are limited in rural areas, tending to produce mental health issues that coincide with addiction.
As Lisa Pruitt points out, people turning to drugs are a symptom of despair and malaise about declining prospects and downward mobility in rural areas. This theory does not locate the driver for addiction in either unsavory connections to urban spaces, like the Paul LePage characterization, or in poor personal character of some 'bad apples' who reject the traditional values of rural communities like the conservative commentators above. Viewing opiate overdoses as deaths of despair is all about structural pressures that reduce opportunity in rural places, combined with veritable spigot of easily available drugs.
Unfortunately, it's hard to tell what's likely to change in the next few years for the better. The Secretary of Agriculture for the Obama administration, Tom Vilsack, made big efforts to bring the rural opioid epidemic to the attention of Washington in the last years of his tenure. The new administration has been quiet on the issue, but if Mike Pence's foot-dragging attitude toward needle exchanges in Indiana is any indication, it might be a long time before these rural places get a public health approach that works.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Thank you for this commentary on opioid use in rural areas. I have not been very in tune with the reasons why rural areas are disproportionately affected, so this post was particularly informative for me. The issue seems so closely tied with access to health care, which I was not aware of.
There is a trend in some of the main challenges seen in rural communities where access to a resource is difficult, so solutions are put in place, and then the community is hurt because those "solutions" cause some other larger problem. Another example of this is the use of laymen as judges in rural Upstate NY courts. There is a scarcity of lawyers and judges who want to work in those areas, so the counties put together bare bones trainings and then allow any person off the street who needs a job. This has turned into something other than real justice. I digress. Healthcare resources are scarce, whether it be physical therapy or rehabilitation.
Another trend I notice is that whether it be opioids in rurality or crack in the city, law enforcement always finds a way to blame the people who get addicted instead of trying to help rid communities of the problem. This is a shameful approach to drug addictions and in my view, it needs to change before we see real amelioration of the problem.
Willie, I appreciate your discussion here of the different lenses through which the opioid problem can be viewed — i.e., legal versus public health — because it really highlights how much framing matters. This it true for most problems, several of which are currently under discussion on this blog (see, e.g., Jenna's post on the issue of gun control: http://legalruralism.blogspot.com/2017/01/rural-children-and-guns-part-one-basics.html. For a long time, firearm violence was treated strictly as a social or policy issue, rather than a public health issue. See: http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122535.).
This post also hit me hard because opioid abuse is an especially virulent problem in parts of my home state. NPR has been running a series of really interesting articles on the problem lately, and one of them raised an interesting point that I think aligns nicely with Lisa Pruitt's "deaths of despair" analysis. In discussing the opioid impact in rural communities, the journalist notes: "Plus, the specific types of jobs more prevalent in rural areas — like manufacturing, farming and mining — tend to have higher injury rates. That can lead to more pain, and possibly, to more painkillers."
Given the "confluence of factors" working against rural communities with respect to drug abuse (e.g., economic hardship, lack of appropriate addiction and treatment resources, increased likelihood of sustaining an injury requiring painkillers, and social factors like the kinship networks mentioned above," it's hard to believe that even the more close-minded politicians would consider a tough-on-crime approach sufficient. Thank you for this thoughtful post.
Interesting NPR posts:
* http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/12/15/505710073/drug-dealer-md-contends-that-well-meaning-docs-drove-the-opioid-epidemic
* http://www.npr.org/2016/05/10/477449821/as-opiod-crisis-escalates-missouri-is-without-monitoring-database
* http://www.npr.org/2016/05/10/477449821/as-opiod-crisis-escalates-missouri-is-without-monitoring-database
* http://www.npr.org/2017/02/03/513196772/u-s-city-sues-oxycontin-maker-for-contributing-to-opiod-crisis
and the article I quoted from above re: rural Colorado:
* http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/01/23/511217396/rural-colorados-opioid-connections-might-hold-clues-to-better-treatment
I found this to be a really interesting, if harrowing, article. In high school I knew several acquaintances who passed away from a pain killer overdose, so this issue feels very close to me. I fear that without a concerted effort to combat the issue we are going to see the problem spiral out of control.
I think another aspect of this issue is the monetary cost of the crisis on local communities. Jailing people is very expensive, and the loss of workforce productivity just adds to that cost. The collateral consequences of having a record can make it even more difficult for someone to find employment or housing, resulting in an increased need for public benefits programs. And this is without even mentioning the ineffectiveness of jailing addicts, and how jails become revolving doors for people suffering from addiction.
The response by some rural prosecutors to the opioid epidemic seems reminiscent of a "War on Drugs" mentality. The War on Drugs called for tougher laws and mandatory minimums for drug offenses, with funding directed at arresting and prosecuting drug dealers and users, while little was done to address prevention and treatment. It is sad to read about rural counties who are taking this approach, since we know that treating this problem solely as a legal issue, without addressing the underlying addiction, is a strategy that will ultimately fail.
In my research, I stumbled across one example of a rural judge who is responding to the opioid problem in his jurisdiction by sending users to a treatment program, instead of treating them like criminals. This judge chose to create a drug court program and provides access to treatment for free, as a result of grant funding. It is a good example of rural areas can start to address these issues in a different way. http://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2017/01/27/rural-judge-admits-being-caught-unaware-opiates-power/97149786/
Developing an addiction to drugs isn’t a character flaw or a sign of weakness, and it takes more than willpower to overcome the problem. Abusing illegal or certain prescription drugs can create changes in the brain, causing powerful cravings and a compulsion to use that makes sobriety seem like an impossible goal. But recovery is never out of reach, no matter how hopeless your situation seems or how many times you’ve tried and failed before. With the right treatment and support, change is possible.
For many people struggling with addiction, the toughest step toward recovery is the very first one: recognizing that you have a problem and deciding to make a change. It’s normal to feel uncertain about whether you’re ready to start recovery, or if you have what it takes to quit. If you’re addicted to a prescription drug, you may be concerned about how you’re going to find an alternate way to treat a medical condition. It’s okay to feel torn. Committing to sobriety involves changing many things, including:
the way you deal with stress
who you allow in your life
what you do in your free time
how you think about yourself
the prescription and over-the-counter medications you take
It’s also normal to feel conflicted about giving up your drug of choice, even when you know it’s causing problems in your life. Recovery requires time, motivation, and support, but by making a commitment to change, you can overcome your addiction and regain control of your life.
Post a Comment