Stigmatic: Our Opioid Crisis

"My articles tend to get a lot of traffic and be shared on social media - Twitter and Facebook, and what not. There's a lot of people commenting on it ... sometimes it's not the best response because a lot of people who sound off typically have the myopic view of, it's not my problem, screw them, why are we wasting time on this? Let them OD, we'll all be better off."

Decriminalization & Reducing Stigma

"Efforts to remove stigma and allocate funding for treatment has become the never-ending debate for many of those fighting the epidemic. Though the county holds a number of meetings and summits, a singular solution remains intangible."

"Decriminalization is the lessening of criminal penalties. In this case, it means no longer saddling individuals with a substance use disorder with jail time or felony convictions for their condition. This does not mean an end to prosecuting dealers or suppliers. But rather to reduce stigma, making it easier for sufferers of substance use to open up about their struggle and receive the necessary treatment."

"Everyone's recovery story is different. For some, the road to recovery involves long-term supervised prescriptions, while others find guidance in spiritually-based 12-step programs. Whatever the path, recovery is an ongoing process."

"Pain can be good when it tells us something. A spike in opiate death rates is painful to watch but its message is plain: we did this. We let pharmaceutical companies push opiates for years without question, locked up sufferers of substance use disorder. We pushed the job of solving a crisis we barely understood to law enforcement, educators, and medical professionals without really equipping them to do so. This is our opioid crisis. We cannot ask its victims to solve it for themselves because we are all its victims and we will all be its conquerors. Someday soon, no one will have to suffer alone. Stigmatic."^2,3

¹ In 2014, prescription opioids were a major contributor to overdose deaths in the United States, but more recent data shows a significant shift in the epidemic toward synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. By 2024, overdose deaths were increasingly driven by illicit synthetic opioids rather than prescription pain medications, reflecting changes in the drug supply and patterns of use over time.
² Opioid pharmaceutical marketing, led by Purdue Pharma's 1996 launch of OxyContin, aggressively promoted long-acting opioids for chronic non-cancer pain, shifting from strict, short-term usage paradigms. Misleading tactics—including overstating safety, downplaying addiction risks, and funding biased educational materials—drove widespread prescribing, fueling a major public health crisis, resulting in exponential overdose increases, and leading to billions in corporate settlements.
³ Research shows that individuals with substance use disorders who are incarcerated often receive inadequate treatment, despite evidence that in-prison treatment and continued care after release can reduce both drug use and recidivism. The period immediately following release from incarceration is also a particularly high-risk time for fatal overdose, with formerly incarcerated individuals facing dramatically elevated overdose mortality risk compared to the general population.