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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Punishment Not the Key to Preventing Overdoses

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Thursday, August 10, 2017   

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — President Donald Trump is vowing to take a law-and-order approach to combating the nation's worsening opioid epidemic. But mental health experts say that strategy ignores key truths about the problem.

In comments this week, the President told reporters, "Strong law enforcement is absolutely vital to having a drug-free society.”

Rebecca Farley David, vice president for policy and advocacy at the National Council on Behavioral Health, said prevention and treatment are the bigger keys to success. She noted that for many people, addiction starts at home.

"So often it happens because of legally prescribed pain medications, either that were legally prescribed for that individual or someone else in their family, and they had access to the pills,” Farley David said.

She said illicit use of street drugs like heroin may follow on the heels of an addiction to pain medication, but she stressed that drug enforcement is only part of a much more complex picture.

According to the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, in 2015 there were nearly 1,100 deaths due to overdose. That number jumped to 1,800 in 2016.

Farley David said she believes Health and Human Services Director Tom Price is saying the right things about the nature and causes of the opioid crisis, but she said action needs to be taken soon. She pointed to policy changes in Medicaid that could provide relief to thousands.

The problem with Medicaid, she said, is simple.

"It doesn't permit payment for most residential substance-use treatment, due to an outdated payment prohibition built into the program,” Farley David said. "That needs to change."

She argued that prevention, treatment and recovery should be the three primary focus areas to curb the opioid epidemic. In the meantime, the number of overdose deaths in Maryland has more than tripled since 2010. It has increased in all age groups, but has seen the greatest increase among those age 55 and above.


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