Statistics show that 75% of drug addicts can achieve successful recovery long-term.
These are inspiring numbers, indeed, and give hope to the millions suffering from addiction and to their families desperate for hope in the constant dark that is loving someone with an addiction. But I can’t help but wonder if these numbers are skewed. For example, in 2022, over 100,000 people in the United States died from drug overdoses. Are they counted in the 100 from which 75 recover? Afterall, those statistics are a much harder pill to swallow, as a society.
I’ve always loathed the term “a perfect storm;” it is such an oxymoron. Perfect implies something good, but the phrase refers to anything but. In our community, we are met with a perfect storm, indeed: an intersection between rampant drug use, at-risk youths, and apathy. The depth of that apathy will soon be known, as the county and the city are working on a joint effort to identify mutual uses for funding from the opioid settlement money, a judgement against pharmaceutical companies intended to address, or attempt to address, the giant tragedy that is opioid addiction in our country. Our elected officials have been collaborating for well over a year on uses for the funding within our struggling community.
Could this opioid settlement money actually be a light in the perfect storm? Absolutely, if it targets the right demographic to stem the flow of drugs in our community and lessen the impacts to our most vulnerable population: our children.
While most politicians, especially in our politically nondiverse city, county and state, advocate for wrapping their arms (and billions of dollars) around drug addicts, there are more creative, unconventional methods of using this funding, that are well within the strict guidelines of the settlement. Recall our perfect storm and those caught within – the children. We clearly have a deficit in how we support our children. The education system is based on test scores, not true learning and even when test scores are bad, the child is the afterthought to that equation. But why do children start to fail? If they are worried about their home life, of course school will take a mental back-seat.
I propose a radical idea: identify those children, especially very young children, who have been affected by the fentanyl and methamphetamine crises in our society and wrap your arms (and what is expected to be approximately $28 million dollars, between the city and the county) around them. For they are truly innocent and most deserving of our concern. Reinvigorate the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) or GREAT (Gang Resistance Education and Training) programs; assign a big brother or sister from a local athletic department; perform community outreach with fire, police, city, county and state government agencies; follow-through with internships at those same entities; and ensure a college education and maybe even a living stipend for those kids that make it through and want to go to college.
This has the potential to establish a foundation and critical milestones on which at-risk children can focus in school and hopefully not follow a well-worn path to self-destruction. And in doing so, you simultaneous provide a path to their salvation, as well as our community’s.
Shawna Pfeiffer is a guest columnist and a life-long Doña Ana County resident, graduate of NMSU, small business owner, hobby farmer, dog-lover, outdoor enthusiast and mother to two young children. She can be reached at srpfeiffer1@gmail.com.
