Culpeper Star-Exponent - Opioid crisis needs to be addressed

Statement

The opioid crisis is real, and it needs to be addressed.

That is why I introduced a bill, H.R. 5889, the Recognizing Early Childhood Trauma Related to Substance Abuse Act of 2018. This legislation assists victims of the opioid crisis and provide professionals working with those victims the resources they need to assist.

I am pleased to announce that H.R. 5889 passed on the House floor this week. I urge the Senate to pass it quickly so that it can be signed into law.

The opioid crisis has affected millions. 2 million Americans will suffer from addiction to opiates in 2018. Every day, more than 115 people in the U.S. die after overdosing on opioids.

In Virginia, drug overdoses kill more people than motor vehicle accidents and gun deaths. Last year, we lost more Virginians to opioid overdoses than any other year in at least the last decade. For five years now, fatal drug overdoses are the leading cause of unnatural death in Virginia.

In Henrico County, 87% of inmates identified drug involvement as being a direct or indirect reason for their incarceration. And out of 1,007 inmates jailed for drug involvement, a plurality began using at age 13!

But the largest overdose rate last year was in Culpeper county, which increased from about 22.5 overdoses per 1,000 people in 2015 to 38 in 2017.

The human cost is not calculable. But we can calculate the total "economic burden' of opioid misuse. Opioid misuse costs the U.S. $78.5 billion a year -- that's what you get when you combine the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment and the criminal justice involvement.

For all these reasons, we must act.

Last November, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing to examine how opioids are impacting communities across America. During the hearing, Members, including myself, heard the testimony of Ms. Toni Miner, a Family Support Partner for the Child and Youth Leadership who uses her own past struggle with drug abuse to help other families and children overcome addiction. In her testimony, Miner told Members that "addiction is a family and if the whole family is not treated history will continue to repeat itself."

One of the unintended consequences of the opioid epidemic is that addiction has devastated not only the lives of users, but the lives of their families too. Maybe the most tragic reality of this epidemic is it has devastated the lives of children.
Half of opioid overdose deaths occur among men and women ages 25 to 44, and many of these individuals are parents.

The number of children in the U.S. foster care system is increasing, and a recent study showed almost one in three children who were placed in the foster care system in 2015 entered at least partially due to parental drug abuse. In Virginia, there were 5,295 children in foster care as of April. These children, and those still living with an addicted caregiver, experience unimaginable hardship and trauma, and thus have unique needs.

When these tragedies occur, the children need the community's help to help heal intergenerational wounds. Child care providers, Head Start program facilitators, and professionals who work with children are in a special position to identify and assist children affected by substance abuse. However, they may not have the preparation and education needed to recognize the risk factors associated with childhood trauma due to an adult's substance abuse.

Information and resources from the Department of Health and Human Services could help educate child care and early education providers how to identify risk factors and respond appropriately when faced with a child experiencing trauma related to substance abuse. Such information and resources will help keep more children safe, while aiding in the healthy development and well-being of the child and promoting whole-family approaches whenever possible.

Professionals working should be equipped with information to help curb the long-term impacts of substance abuse and empower multi-generational families to alleviate the suffering children experience due to trauma.

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