Opinion | In Appalachia, Children Inherited the Opioid Crisis

"The government's long campaign of selective incarceration and punitive propaganda sent officers into schools to tell us that bad people brought addiction on themselves when they didn't have the gumption to just say no. I'm shocked now at the cruelty of blaming illness on moral failure. Imagine telling children that pneumonia comes from weak willpower, or that a family member should be kicked out of the house for having cancer."

"How does this happen to working people, mothers, high school athletes, none of whom imagined the hell that lay at the bottom of their first bottle of painkillers? Some started as kids, messing around with the stuff that showed up wherever they turned. Others were following a doctor's orders. Some didn't understand they were addicted at first. They only knew they needed a renewed prescription after the first one ran out, because they felt sicker now than they'd ever been in their lives."

"Addiction alters the brain and body to become disastrously, even fatally, sick if the substance is withdrawn. It's a condition nobody has ever asked for. Like any other disease, it can be treated medically, and also, importantly, with compassion. Where sympathy is withheld, resources for care do not flow. Most of us now know how this plague arrived in Appalachia."

People in Appalachia recount injuries, household accidents, and surgeries that began opioid use after prescribed painkillers or casual exposure. Working people, mothers, and high school athletes often did not anticipate severe dependence after initial pills. Many began experimenting as children or followed doctors' orders and later did not recognize addiction until withdrawal intensified and prescriptions ended. Decades of punitive drug policy taught moralizing views that blamed individuals rather than recognizing addiction as an illness. Addiction alters brain and body, producing severe sickness on withdrawal. Addiction can be medically treated and requires compassion; withholding sympathy prevents care and resources from reaching those in need.

Read at www.nytimes.com