Opioids still a major issue among young people in Columbia
The opioid epidemic is not going away. Tonight ABC 17 News was at the forum, as the Youth Community Coalition members spoke to Missouri lawmakers about opioid use and how it’s effecting young people in our community.
“Unfortunately, this year alone we’ve seen 10 heroin overdose deaths in our city limits of Columbia. That’s one a month,” said Sgt. Jeff Rukstad with the Columbia Police Department.
Rukstad said said when he started in the narcotics unit in 2005, their unit never saw heroin.
Now, it’s nearly 75 percent of what they deal with on a daily basis and that’s putting it lightly.
He said the most common ages they see with opioid and heroin use is 20 to 28 years old.
Heather Harlan with Phoenix Health said one thing that has to happen in order to end this epidemic is a conversation. “One of the things I think we as the community needs to do is learn to support a culture. To have those hard conversations with our doctors.”
Another thing that’s bothersome to both Harlan and Rukstad is the easy access of prescription drugs in parents medicine cabinets. This more or less allows young people to get their hands on the drugs easier.
“We are making progress, I think. However, it’s a really, really difficult situation we’re dealing with right now. The prescription drug monitoring program is a great step, though,” said Rukstad.
Despite opioid abuse being a large issue, officers said Columbia isn’t getting hit as hard as bigger cities in our state and it’s actually behind the drug trend.
