Starting Fight Against Opioid Crisis Young: Ohio Incorporates Drug Abuse Education Into Kindergarten Classes
School officials say even children that young are dealing with the fallout from the epidemic. One student in a Ohio school brought a heroin needle her father used into class because she didn't want a younger sibling to step on it. “This is here. This is real,” said Joy Edgell, a principal of Belpre Elementary School.
The Washington Post:
Drug Abuse Education Takes On Urgency In Ohio Opioid Crisis
Ohio, a state where 4,329 people died of drug overdoses in 2016, a death rate second only to neighboring West Virginia, is taking the fight against the opioid epidemic into the classroom with a new style of drug-abuse-prevention education. Ohio’s plan, controversial in a state that prizes local control over schools, features lessons that begin in kindergarten. Instead of relying on scare tactics about drug use or campaigns that recite facts about drugs’ toll on the body, teachers are encouraged to discuss real-life situations and ways to deal with them and to build the social and emotional skills that experts say can reduce the risk of substance abuse. (Vander Schaaff, 4/22)
In other news on the epidemic —
Health News Florida:
Feds Give Florida Another $27M For Opioid Crisis
Florida will get another $27 million dollars this year from the federal government to combat the opioid crisis. The money is part of a two-year $54 million grant, which the state began spending last year after Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency for the opioid epidemic. The money pays for treatments, such as methadone, medication to reverse drug overdoses and counseling services. (Ochoa, 4/19)
Arizona Republic:
Arizona Medicaid Panel Rejects Opioid Drug
Arizona's largest public health insurance program, Medicaid, pays for only one type of buprenorphine drug designed to wean people from opioid addiction. Despite calls from doctors to authorize competing versions of the drug, a state Medicaid committee this week decided to stick with Suboxone as a preferred medication for opioid dependence. (Alltucker, 4/21)
