Pennsylvania Sees 80 Percent Increase in Opioid-Related ER Visits
Some days are better than others in this opioid crisis. Sometimes we get good news, and other times we get really bad news. It seems like each day, week, and month is like a roller coaster, filled with ups, downs, flips, and loops. The crisis has been going on for some time now and I was hopeful that, at this point, we would start seeing a decrease in the number of people overdosing and losing their lives to the drug epidemic. Instead of seeing the numbers down trending, we’re seeing overdoses skyrocketing nationwide, with “hot spots” popping up all over the place where addicts then flock to in an attempt to get the ultra-strong dope responsible for killing their friends. Anything for a high. Anything to make the pain and sickness of coming down go away, I suppose.
In 2017, the opioid crisis hit the State of Pennsylvania pretty severely, keeping Philadelphia right in the crosshairs of this astronomical problem. The CDC just released some statistics that showed that opioid-related ER admissions jumped 30% nationwide, with an 80% increase in Pennsylvania alone. That huge jump occurred between 2016 and 2017 and it’s very alarming. This shows that instead of the drug problem only occurring in rural communities, it shows that it is happening in cities and urban areas as well. Basically, it’s a non-discriminatory plague that’s affecting every single community, whether it be poor, wealthy, suburban, rural, or in the middle of the city. Wherever people live, there are drugs. And where there is more of a demand for drugs, more drugs become available. And with the higher availability of drugs, the more people are using, which means more people are overdosing. Thus, the OD numbers shoot through the roof and then we all wonder where things went wrong.
“This has reached a level that we can no longer think spending money is going to fix it. It’s going to take a comprehensive program to fix it.”
Pennsylvania Rep. Republican Mike Kelly said, “This has reached a level that we can no longer think spending money is going to fix it. It’s going to take a comprehensive program to fix it.“ John Auerbach, the CEO of Trust for America’s Health said, “I think we have to mobilize in the same way we do against deadly infectious diseases.”
Things went wrong when we decided that drugs were a good solution to our problems—that they’re the panacea for what ails us, although we were just sold snake oil in the end. Drugs are a means to an end, and unless we start realizing how bad things really are, they’re just going to continue to get worse. More children are going to overdose. Some kids will lose their parents. The point is—if we don’t stop it, who will? And if no one stops it, what kind of sick monster are we creating? At this point, I wonder if there’s always going to be an epidemic; if drug use is something that will transcend time and carry on through the ages. That would certainly be the end of our civilization. A nuclear holocaust or a meteor smashing into the Earth may not be what ends us. It may be our own poor choices and lack of coping skills that could end mankind for good…
