A fellow veteran Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics agent called John Harless recently in tears.
“I just left a house,” the agent said. “The woman is seven months pregnant; she’s laying in the bathroom dead with a needle in her arm. Her husband and her 3-year-old are standing outside the door. They had no idea she had this problem.”
That real-life account from North Mississippi is the story of the average drug overdose in the United States today, Harless said.
Speaking to the Columbia Rotary Club Tuesday, the state law enforcement officer said 80 percent of heroin addicts start with a prescription for pain. When that supply runs dry, they turn to injecting heroin in their veins. That often turns deadly when the drug is cut with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 100 times more powerful opioid.
Although a major social problem here, it has not reached the proportions of elsewhere where every 20 minutes a baby is born addicted to opioids — at least yet.
District Attorney Hal Kittrell, who introduced Harless, said in Marion County the drug problem remains about half meth, which is being brought in from Mexico after new state laws limited the supply of needed ingredients, and half pills.
Harless said a lot of groups that previously haven’t worked together are joining forces to try to prevent Mississippi’s opioid crisis from getting as bad as it is in places like Ohio.
“In my almost 20 years of law enforcement this is the biggest crisis we’ve ever faced,” he said. “We can’t arrest enough people to solve this.”
So what can be done?
• Limit prescriptions for Hydrocodone and other painkillers to a five-day supply. He said if a person is given an initial 30-day supply, one in three will still be taking that drug a year later. If you drop it down to a five-day supply, it’s less than 10 percent.
• Hold drugmakers responsible. Harless said companies that manufacture opioids were who educated doctors on how to prescribe painkillers, leading to the current pandemic. Who added pain as the fifth vital sign, where you’re asked on a scale of 1 to 10 how much pain you’re feeling? Purdue Pharma, the makers of Oxycontin, according to Harless. The governor’s task force studying the issue wants to pay for its recommendations by taxing pharmaceuticals.
• Mitigate existing addicts. Law enforcement does not recommend doctors cut off existing addicts overnight because that drives them straight to heroin. Harless said he has been working with the Hattiesburg Clinic to make upcoming “massive changes” in the way it prescribes drugs, for example.
• Take personal responsibility to help addicts. Harless encourages the public to pull aside people they suspect of being addicts to help them get help.
• More funding for state-paid rehab beds. Harless recommends talking to your state senator or representative about that issue.
Pictured Above: MBN Agent John Harless speaks to the Rotary Club, Tuesday. | Photo by Charlie Smith
