A Clarion Call to Action

HPR’s cover this week depicts three flags flying half mast. The flagpoles are syringes, such as those used to inject heroin.

Our community has been rocked. Three men died in seven days due to heroin overdoses. There have been other near misses. Law enforcement officials notified the public Sunday that heroin arriving recently in Fargo-Moorhead and the region may be tainted and or laced with fentanyl.

This situation is not only urgent, but tragic beyond words.

We have family members, friends and neighbors, and work colleagues grieving. We frankly cannot fathom their pain and anguish, except that we, too, here at HPR have connections to a couple of the overdose victims and their families.

The reality is that heroin is an epidemic casting its dark shadow across every corner of the United States. It’s gripping. It’s disheartening. And, it’s nothing less than a clarion call to action.

Lives depend on us as a community acting. The lives of countless sons, daughters, brothers and sisters, moms and dads, aunts and uncles are precariously in the balance. We have a calling and it will take all of us to get through this, so that our dear ones and their dear ones are protected and saved.

For starters, we need to open our hearts to those who are grieving. There is no fault here. There is no blame. There is no wrong that could have or should have been corrected. It simply is what it is and people we know or who know people we know are devastated and heartbroken. It’s up to us to acknowledge their grief and to join in helping them survive this tragic episode in their lives.

Our next task is to stand up and in every way possible help those next in line and in jeopardy’s way. There is no simple cookie-cutter measurement of who’s at risk, yet they exist and their numbers are legion.

Exactly how we respond and act defines each of us and us as a community. Do not hesitate. Don’t waver, don’t waffle. Do it now and with all your might.

There are examples from other cities and communities that can guide us in turning this god-awful set of circumstances around. We can learn from others who’ve already been hit by heroin, opiate, meth and other addiction crises.

Law enforcement quite naturally is on the front line, seeing the train wreck coming at us full bore. We commend and thank them for alerting the public to the gravity of the heroin epidemic bearing down on the Fargo-Moorhead region. Their compassion was evident as they implored people close to or dealing directly with addictions to be vigilant and careful, for now their lives or the lives of those they love are on the line.

Others, however, need to be brought to the table and we need a community-created plan of action.

We have resources and expertise already in the trenches and available to give even more to stave off this crisis. Chemical and addiction counselors. Health providers and treatment professionals and centers. Educators. And community leaders, elected or not.

There are legal realities to be assessed and addressed. Needle exchange programs not only save lives but also reduce the transmission of diseases such as hepatitis and HIV. We need to change those laws in North Dakota and waiting until the next legislative session in 2017 is unacceptable.

There are also heroin and opioid antidotes that must be more easily and readily available not only to law enforcement and ambulance personnel but to users, their families and friends. North Dakota needs to address these necessary changes in practice, and sometimes in law, now.

There are many providers and intervention programs in our community yet they are starving financially. Take, for example, the F-M Good Neighbor Project in Moorhead, a group that provides clean needles and also education and training, and when they can, naloxone treatment kits.

They’ve had 30 reported instances since October when these kits were deployed, each time probably saving a life or stopping a near miss in its tracks. This group is self-funding. We as a community need to remove the financial challenges from their list of obstacles. See the HPR story in this issue.

Other providers like Share House have been in the news. Six clients were reported to have been released suddenly and possibly prematurely. One of the six was shortly thereafter killed, due to an overdose. North Dakota needs to step up its funding for this and other treatment programs. Now.

Lastly, all caretakers, stakeholders, providers, advocates, experts, educators, law enforcement officials, elected and community leaders, and experts need to join forces and set up community town hall-type public forums to inform and strategize action going forward.