News and Views

BY LINDA WORTHINGTON
UMConnection Staff

“Churches Address the Opioid Crisis” was the topic as WesleyNexus held its sixth annual interfaith gathering at the Conference Mission Center Feb. 10, in recognition of Evolution Weekend.

The Rev. Maynard Moore, founder/director of WesleyNexus Inc. and M. Catherine Bennett from the National Institute of Health who moderated the panel gave introductory remarks.

They explained that in order to give context to the enormous problem of opioid abuse, it is necessary to understand how it’s become such a problem in our society. One reason for its severity is that many opioids have been easily and often legally obtained by prescription, stated a report requested by Senator Mike Lee in November 2017.

In 2016, there were roughly 64,000 deaths from drug overdoses in the United States with opioids accounting for nearly two-thirds of them, and they continue to rise. Since 1999, opioid-related deaths have quadrupled, and now are added to by deaths from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, which have more than doubled.

Michael L. Oshinsky, program director of Pain and Migraine at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, an expert on neurological pain, headaches, pain disorders and pain management, opened the panel. He pointed out that 25,000,000 Americans have chronic pain daily.

Gerard P. Ahern, associate professor of pharmacology and physiology at Georgetown University, spoke about pharmacologic treatments (prescriptions) for alleviating pain, acknowledging that drugs, though not the only way, are the most common.

He summarized the treatments, ranging from NSAIDS, cortisone (steroids) to opioids. Mild pain, he said, is best treated with NSAIDS, moderate pain with opioid and codeine, and strong pain with opioids. Not all opioid-takers become addicted, Oshinsky pointed out.

“The faster the opioid gets into the brain and releases the dopamine, the more addictive it is,” Ahern said.

Heroin (morphine) enters the brain quickly, an oxycodone (OxyContin) less so.  But users have discovered that if it is chewed, it brings the relief/reaction faster.

Ahern explained that fentanyl, one of the most recent synthetic drugs on the market, is 100 times more potent than morphine. It works very quickly and there is little time to get an antidote to the user who overdoses. An antidote is Naloxone, which reverses an overdose if received in time.

“We need a more sensible approach to opioid use in prescriptions,” Ahern said. Other developments that are needed to fight the epidemic, he said, are a fast-acting inhibitor, non-addictive opioids for pain treatment, and something to treat fentanyl overdoses.

After hearing about the genesis of pain and what pharmas are doing about it, the next speaker was Onaje Salim, who works in the U.S. Government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA), He spoke about the government’s response to the opioid crisis.

He provides leadership to a team that administers the $1.8 billion substance and abuse block grants, a $1.0 billion opioid-State Targeted Response program, and other related programs in all 50 states.

SAMSHA funds treatment and addiction centers and funds research on pain. Salim outlined a 4-point strategy to combat the opioid crisis:

1. Get better data; he mentioned a “giant cannabis research” project “on something for which we don’t have data.”
2. Find better pain treatments;
3. Do better research on prevention, treatment and recovery;
4. Develop more overdose reverses.

 “We’re looking for partnerships that address concerns of the community,” he said. One reason addiction is a community concern is that it “is a condition of loneliness.”

 “People who abuse alcohol are more apt to abuse heroin and other opioid painkillers,” Ahern said. In combination with alcohol, the drug is 40 times more likely to addict.

Salim concluded with several frightening statistics:

• 12-13 million abusers misuse opioids.
• There are 828,000 heroin users, 300,000 fentanyl users;
• 5 million people misuse pain relief drugs.

“Drug overdoses exceeded car accidents, guns and HIV in 2015,” Salim said. Alcohol was the main substance abused.

The Rev. Leo Yates Jr., a Provisional Deacon who works at the Division of Rehabilitation Services in Baltimore, rounded up the afternoon to share what the churches response might be.

“All of our churches have people with some sort of addictions,” he said. “And most seminarians do not get training in helping a person wanting to go into treatment or do something for the addiction,” he said.

Churches have the opportunity to provide care and not enable the problem further, he said. Forty-three percent of individuals who go into treatments come back home and relapse. That’s because, though residential treatment is effective, it is insurance-run, so often doesn’t provide enough time.

“Treatment needs to be holistic,” Yates said. Many who have addictions are also suffering from other conditions.

Keep family members in mind when counseling, Yates cautioned churches. There are a variety of ways churches can help with recovery needs. Among them are:

• Hold monthly prayer vigils;
• Organize support groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) that provide safe places for addicts and “are of immeasurable help,” said a church lay member familiar with NA.
• Observe drug awareness days – adopt a recovery house;
• Get training;
• Adopt a treatment facility, which can be done as a shared ministry with other churches. At a treatment facility, where volunteers probably cannot interact with the clients, adopters can focus on staff, clothing closets, providing meals, holding a Bible study and in other ways. (ReachYates at ).

“This is a social justice issue,” Yates said. “Both addicts and their families need our love and care.” Revealing his own years of being in recovery, he said, “None of us in recovery want to be the lepers in the community.”

“It’s a health issue, not a criminal one,” said the Rev. Eliezer Valentin-Castanon, senior pastor of Trinity UMC in Frederick, as he briefly summarized the discussion. “This is wider and deeper and more complex than we imagined.”

BOX: WesleyNexus will do workshops on faith and science at Leadership Days: Feb. 24, Greater Washington Region; March 3, Southern Region at Southern High School; and March 10, Baltimore Region in Bel Air UMC.