Tag: opioid use disorder

“We expected to hear that the opioid epidemic had an impact in classrooms, but not to this extent,” said one researcher.

The results of a unique survey illustrate the harms that the opioid epidemic has inflicted not only on young children, but their education as well. Teachers surveyed throughout West Virginia reported feeling “burned out” from having to deal with students affected by opioid abuse at home.

Among the 2,205 teachers surveyed across 49 counties, 70% say they observed a rise in the number of kids who are affected by substance abuse at home. Only 10% of teachers say they felt confident in knowing how to support students in this situation.

The survey’s findings were presented to the state Board of Education in March.

“The comments from the teachers were pretty shocking. We expected to hear that the opioid epidemic had an impact in classrooms, but not to this extent,” said Frankie Tack, addiction studies minor coordinator and clinical assistant professor at West Virginia University.

When kids are not taken care of at home, they carry those needs to the classroom.

“Teachers talked about having to wash the kids’ clothes at school. Letting kids not participate in class and go over to a corner on a mat and sleep because they hadn’t gotten sleep the night before because people were in and out of the home. Having extra snacks during the day because they don’t have enough food at home. Just all kinds of things that normally wouldn’t happen in the classroom,” said Tack.

These kids not only affect teachers, their behavior affects other students as well.

“What we’re also seeing is that the impact on students extends beyond those with direct experience with substance use disorders at home,” said another researcher Jessica Troilo, associate professor in the Department of Learning Sciences and Human Development. “The students who don’t have those experiences at home are witnessing behaviors in the classroom that they aren’t accustomed to. This is what we call the tertiary effect of higher classroom stress linked to the opioid crisis.”

The goal of the study is to use the findings to develop a teacher training module for dealing with the effects of addiction in the classroom, to implement statewide.

“West Virginia teachers are in desperate need of support in this area, and that’s what we hope to provide,” said Troilo.

Based on the findings, the research team recommends more training for teachers on how to handle students affected by substance use disorder, and how to interact with their families. They also recommend increasing support from counselors and other mental health professionals, and providing teachers information on 12-step support groups for friends and family members.

View the original article at thefix.com

One of the hosts of the NPR podcast Throughline, broke down America’s history with opioids and how it evolved into the crisis it has become. 

Opioid use disorder has its roots in the powerful biological processes that opioids tap into, but there are also cultural factors that make Americans particularly susceptible to opioid addiction, both now and in the past, according to one journalist. 

“Our culture has gotten so good at marketing and that marriage of capitalism and marketing and medicine has been perfected here in America, for good or bad,” Ramtin Arablouei, one of the hosts of the NPR podcast Throughline, told Rolling Stone. “That has made it a very American crisis.”

Arablouei and his cohost, Rund Abdelfatah, followed American’s use of opioids starting with morphine in the 1800s. 

“There was a recurring question of whose pain is taken as ‘real pain’ and how do we address it?” Abdelfatah said. “There was definitely a gender bias in the 19th Century around treating pain; there was a racial bias, and a lot of these biases remain in different forms today.”

Morphine was prescribed to Civil War soldiers, and later used to treat ailments ranging from cramps to cough. 

“When the war ended, not only do you have a lot of soldiers addicted, but you have this new drug introduced into American life,” Abdelfatah said, pointing out that doctors often prescribed morphine to women, who were thought to be weaker and thus have a lower pain tolerance. 

When doctors began to realize that morphine was addictive, they turned to heroin as a “safer” alternative. It was even advertised as a medication that was safe for children, Arablouei said.

“It’s fascinating how in-your-face it is, and it shows the evolving attitude we and the advertising community have had toward opiates in our culture,” he said.

When heroin was criminalized in 1924, opioids became a law enforcement issue, particularly in communities of color. This reflects the way that racist policies have affected the war on drugs in modern America. 

“There tends to be a more aggressive response to drug epidemics—as in, more criminalization—when it happens in communities that are urban, black or brown. That tends to be the historical pattern,” said Arablouei.

“You see that play out with heroin, when the problem plays out underground. And you can see that today: a lot of attention is paid to the opioid crisis, and there’s a lot more empathy from politicians than you saw from them toward, say, the heroin epidemic [in urban communities], or the crack epidemic in the Nineties.”

View the original article at thefix.com