(Editor’s note: This editorial, written in 2018, has been revamped and is re-running today because of the growing concern about opioid abuse in Sampson and across the nation. That was heightened this weekend, when a Newton Grove man was arrested and some six pounds of a drug believed to be crystal meth and some 5,000 fentanyl pills were seized. Drug abuse has not waned in this county.)
Opioids kill. And they are killing people in Sampson County. In 2022, the latest year for statistics, Sampson had 16 overdose deaths and 79 hospital emergency room visits for suspected overdoses. The 2022 death data is provisional and likely to increase as cases are finalized, according to the Sampson County State of the County report.
If you, those closest to you or someone you know hasn’t been impacted by this overwhelming problem, we are thankful. But it should not deter you from the two things we believe to be true: 1. Sampson County has a serious opioid problem, and 2) the problem belongs to us all, not just to those directly impacted by it today.
The statistics we’ve already cited should be convincing enough, but in case it’s not, take a look at these staggering numbers:
• 84.4 opiate pills are prescribed per person each year (based on the total number of Sampson residents per capita);
• 27 million opioid pills were dispensed from pharmacies in Sampson between 2011-2016;
• 3,257,000 opioids pills were added to that number in 2017 alone;
• There were 240 reported overdoses between January and December 2017, with 198 of those from medications or drugs; 22 from opiates; 13 from heroin; and seven from benzodiazepine.
This is a problem for Sampson County, not just addicts, not just family members of those who’ve been hooked on prescription pills; not just friends and family of those hooked on heroin, not just law enforcement, not just Social Services. This problem must be recognized as belonging to us all. From our churches to our community centers, from town halls to doctor’s offices, street corners to subdivisions, we must own this problem, acknowledge it exists and be willing to work together to get it under control.
To add the exclamation point to the fact that a problem still exists, both for opioids and drugs, in general, here in Sampson, a county man was arrested just a few days ago and some six pounds of crystal meth seized, along with around 5,000 pills believed to be fentanyl.
Those drugs weren’t for one individual’s use. The charges, which included trafficking, bear that fact out. The drugs seized were likely on their way to a distribution point — to, perhaps, our friends, our neighbors, our community, even our own family.
Opioids far too often go from a necessary medication to being misused and the object of addiction. It becomes the catalyst for broken homes, displaced and abused children, robberies, thefts and, as we’ve already noted overdoses and death.
In one way or another, many of the symptoms of the abuse touch us, if not directly certainly by virtue of what is happening in the place we call home, the place where our children are being raised and the place where we one day hope to retire.
We all have a vested interest in helping to get this problem under control and working to eliminate it from daily life in Sampson.
Burying our head in the sand will not make it go away; pretending its someone else’s problem won’t either.
Find a way to help. Become a part of the solution not a part of the problem.
Together is the only way we can make the dent necessary in a problem that isn’t simply going to vanish into thin air.