Friday November 11, 2022
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Meeting Both In-Person and by Zoom
Dampeer Room, Second Floor of Kelvin Smith Library*
Case Western Reserve University
Dear Colleagues:
COVID-19 both diverted attention from and seems to have greatly exacerbated the previous public health crisis of the decade – drug, and especially opioid, overdoses. Drug overdoses increased by 30% between 2019 and 2020, and another 15% from 2020 to 2021. Data as of mid-2022 suggested the U.S. had been experiencing over 100,000 deadly overdoses for the previous 12 months at least since mid-2021.
Overdoses have been an issue in the 2022 election, with three main themes. Some politicians have claimed credit for anti-opioid funding. Some have used the issue as another indicator of the threat from evil foreigners and need to close borders. And Tim Ryan in particular, attacked J.D. Vance for including physicians with links to prescription opioid manufacturers in his supposed anti-opioid nonprofit’s efforts. Just last week CVS and Walgreens announced their agreement to the latest in a series of settlements in litigation between state or local governments and the manufacturers and distributors that promoted a massive increase in prescription opioid use from about 2000 through 2011.
While making Big Pharma pay for a small part of the damage it did is a good idea, however, the recent trends in drug overdoses don’t have much to do either with prescription opioids or the early 2010s dynamic in which users switched to heroin from prescription drugs. The overdose or opioid crisis has been transformed since around 2015. Deaths are now overwhelmingly due to two other factors: increased use of methamphetamine and other psycho-depressants (involved in about 20,000 deaths in 2020) and of fentanyl (involved in about 50,000 deaths the same year).
And this means that the public health problem of overdose deaths is now, far more than it was a decade ago, a law enforcement problem. In particular the pushers of opioid products are now selling much more dangerous goods and have to know that. It is much harder for an addict to manage their addiction. It has become even more important than before to investigate deaths so as to find the sources of the drugs – not just to prosecute but also to track down especially dangerous batches that are going around. The rise in methamphetamine overdoses may also increase the importance of preventing sales of the stuff, since unlike with opioids there does not appear to be much in the way of pharmaceutical treatment.
While law enforcement seems to have become more important because its normal enforcement task is more important, it has also become more vital for another reason. One of the most effective ways to save lives is to give treatment to people who are overdosing. First responders to opioid overdoses will administer naloxone (the main way of making sure they are non-fatal, though less reliable with fentanyl) and then may help link survivors to treatment. These are tasks that were not formerly a major part of law enforcement training and pose organizational challenges. For instance, it may work best if teams of law enforcement and social workers are created and available, but how easy is it to do that?
Professor Dan Flannery has been working on these issues in a series of major projects, including for both the state of New Jersey and Cuyahoga County. He joins us to share both his overall perspective and the results of some of his team’s research. I expect this will be a good chance to get a much better understanding of what, under normal circumstances, would be the public health challenge of our time.
In-Person and Virtual Attendance
In order to make it easy for people to protect themselves and still participate, the meetings are accessible on Zoom. Participants can register for each meeting in the same way they did for the past two years. The link is posted below.
This “dual delivery” remains a work in progress. Please be patient with any glitches. The ways we can set up video and audio to work for both people in the room and on Zoom are not perfect.
The discussion begins at 12:30 p.m., but the room should be open no later than Noon. We try to have beverages and refreshments set up soon after that. Participants should be able to sign on to Zoom also by Noon. But please remember not much will be happening online until the talk begins at 12:30 pm. Please also remember to show identification when entering Kelvin Smith Library.
Zoom participants should speak up when asked for questions or comments, or submit thoughts through Zoom’s chat function. Please keep yourself muted until you are choosing to speak.
Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. When you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. If you do not get the newsletter, you should also be able to get the information each Monday by checking http://fridaylunch.case.edu/. Then if you choose you can use the contact form on that website to request the registration link.
This week’s Zoom link for registration is:
https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIvf-ihrT0rHNByyW85HwR3WP9s_4dzS75i
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Please e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about how the Zoom version of the Friday Lunch will work or any other suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.
Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies
About Our Guest
Daniel J. Flannery is the Dr. Semi J. and Ruth Begun Professor and Director of the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education at the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences. His research has been published in a variety of scientific outlets including The New England Journal of Medicine, Developmental Psychology, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Criminology and Public Policy. He is also author of several books including Violence in Everyday Life (2006), Wanted on Warrants: The Fugitive Safe Surrender Program (2013), and the upcoming Cambridge Handbook of Violent Behavior and Aggression (2nd edition, 2018). His primary areas of research are in youth violence prevention, the link between violence and mental health, and community-based program evaluation.
Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
November 18: The First Energy Scandal and the Challenge of Utility Regulation. With Miranda Leppla, J.D., Director, Environmental Law Clinic, CWRU School of Law.
November 25: Thanksgiving Break
December 2: To Be Determined
December 9: To Be Determined |
