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Historically, Oklahoma has been a leader in the prescription of opioids, according to Brad Foster, Norman Regional Hospital’s director of pharmacy services.
ADDICTION ON RISE NPD receives reports of prescription medication abuse weekly as local problem mirrors growth of national issue SIERRA RAINS • @SIERRARAINS
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n May 19, 2011, the Box family received a phone call that their son Austin was unconscious and unresponsive. Austin Box was an OU football player who had sustained several severe injuries throughout his football career and died of an accidental opioid overdose. Craig Box, Austin’s father, said he, his family and the community were absolutely devastated and would never have expected their son had a prescription drug problem before his death. “Everything seemed fine up until that point. My wife and I were around him often, our little daughter was in graduate school at OU and saw him all the time,” Box said. “He wanted to always succeed, and he didn’t want to disappoint anybody.” Austin was one of many who struggle with opioid addiction, a problem that has grown not only nationally but also locally. Lt. Gar y Hopcus, Norman Police Department enforcement officer, said the department receives reports of opioid abuse on a regular basis. “It is a concern of ours just because of the sheer numbers of it,” Hopcus said. “I get intel reports on a weekly basis, and usually there’s about one or two where people are abusing their prescription medications or doing heroin at their house.” Every day, approximately 116 people die from opioid-related overdoses in the United States, and this number is continuing to increase. According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, of the 813 reported deaths in Oklahoma from dr ug-related overdoses, 55 percent were opioid-related. Addiction to opioids can affect people from all different backgrounds, Hopcus said. There are two different groups of people who progress to the point where
they are opioid abusers, he said. “You have people who start off at a young age smoking marijuana, then they progress to harder drugs where they start using opioid-based drugs, and a lot of the time they’re self-medicating,” Hopcus said. “But then you also have another group of people who have suffered an injury, and then the doctors prescribe some opioid-based medication to help cure them of their pain.” Box said Austin had originally been prescribed opioids after a surgery, but as his addiction progressed he probably turned to other resources for the pills. “When he ruptured his disk in his back, I know for sure that he was prescribed opioids in August of 2010,” Box said. “But after he passed away, my wife found the bottle of the August script that still had some pills in it, so he was obviously getting them somewhere besides through the athletics department.” Finding unprescribed opioids in Norman isn’t very hard, Hopcus said. “There is definitely a market for it here in Norman,” he said. “There are people who are buying the stuff, and we bust people on a consistent basis who are selling narcotics like that at 100 pills, 300 pills at a time.” Brittni McGill, Norman Regional Hospital interim cochief nursing officer, said abuse of prescribed opioids dates back to a time when hospitals were rated on how well they treated a patient’s pain — a concept McGill said Norman Regional is working hard to change. “In the health care realm, there has been this big push for patient satisfaction, and sometimes that includes prescribing pain medication,” McGill said. “It’s ‘Give the patient what they need’ — but these are extremely addictive medications, so are we really doing what’s best for them
in the long run?” Brad Foster, Norman Regional Hospital’s director of pharmacy services, said Oklahoma has historically been a leader in the prescription of opioids. “ Typically, Oklahoma has been towards the top as far as over-prescribing. We were like the fourth-highest for prescribing opioids one year,” Foster said.
“There is definitely a market for it here in Norman. There are people who are buying the stuff, and we bust people on a consistent basis who are selling narcotics like that at 100 pills, 300 pills at a time.” LT. GARY HOPCUS, NORMAN POLICE DEPARTMENT ENFORCEMENT OFFICER
Foster said last year, the methods by which hospitals are rated changed to reflect how well the hospital talks to a patient about their pain, and Norman Regional aggressively took on the situation to provide patients with other non-medication options for treating their pain like guided imagery, music and relaxation techniques. “(Opioids are) highly addictive, and we’re kind of seeing the results of that now, so fortunately the scores that hospitals are getting now based on patients’ pain, those have changed and they’ve eliminated that,” Foster said. “We’re trying to swing the pendulum back towards the safer environment and setting that patient’s expectation upfront that they’re going to experience some level of discomfort.” However, the opioid crisis is not going to be fixed with this
solution alone, Foster said. Mental health treatment services play a huge role in the rehabilitation of those who are addicted and those who use opioids as an escape from their mental illnesses, Foster said. As the state of Oklahoma is still in the midst of a huge budget crisis for mental health treatment services, this presents an obstacle to fighting the opioid crisis. Teresa Collado, director of the Virtue Center, which provides counseling and treatment services for people struggling with substance abuse, addiction and other mental illnesses, said mental health treatment is vital for opioid abusers because addiction is a mental illness, and without the proper treatment those who are addicted are not going to get better. “It is critical because it is a mental health issue, and you know when people say, ‘Well, why don’t they just choose not to do that?’ It’s not as simple as that,” Collado said. “If they don’t have people available to help them, more people are going to die, more parents will lose their children, and it just goes on.” Collado said the legislature has been in a special session since the first announcement of cuts to the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services in October 2017, but it has yet to come up with a solution, making cuts inevitable. “The legislature hasn’t been able to come up with a revenue-generating solution, so there are going to be cuts starting May 1,” Collado said. “They have not announced how they will be cutting services, but they will be cutting services.” Lt. Cary Bryant, NPD community outreach coordinator, said the people who are arrested for using opioids illegally have the
option to attend drug court instead of serving jail time, but without funding from the state, programs like the drug court will no longer exist. “Drug court is a crucial part of combating this issue, and when you cut funding at the state level, you cut things like drug court, you cut funding for places like the Virtue Center — when you cut that, there’s no other place to go,” Bryant said. Box said he believed Austin turned to opioids as a way to relieve his pain and continue pursuing his dreams. He said he hoped the loss of his son would demonstrate how important it is that treatment is provided for opioid addiction so the opioid crisis can be addressed in every means possible. “He always wanted to play football at OU,” Box said. “He was well-liked, he was outgoing, and his death had an impact on the Enid community. The family was devastated.” Sierra Rains
sierra.m.rains@gmail.com
OPIOID STATISTICS •
116 people die from opioidrelated overdoses each day in the United States
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Oklahoma could see more cuts to mental health and substance abuse services by May 1
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Cuts could impact Oklahoma’s drug courts and substance abuse resource centers Source: Staff Reports