Fishing is tough, physically grueling work and therefore highly prone to injury, so it’s not surprising that people working in the fishing industry have significantly higher rates of opioid-involved overdose deaths. Around two in five of the 60,000 fishing workers in the U.S. have experienced either an opioid-related overdose or a substance-related accident or injury on the job. To cope, they often combine prescription painkillers, alcohol and other substances, increasing the risks of addiction and deaths. Now, help is available through organizations offering counseling, harm reduction services and overdose reversal medications.
Meanwhile, the New York Times publishes a moving account of how the opioid epidemic ravaged a small town in Pennsylvania. The writer, Shawn McCreesh, calls himself a member of Generation Opioid, noting that by the time he graduated high school a decade ago “opiates were everywhere,” followed by waves if addiction and death “that threatened to swallow families whole.”
And finally, an opinion piece by an addiction psychiatrist in USA Today, about the George Floyd murder trial, says it is unsurprising that Floyd’s substance use would be used to vilify him by the defense. “Our society has long viewed addiction as a moral failing,” especially among people of color. Yet Floyd was among the 2.4 million Americans struggling with opioid addiction, the majority of whom do not receive treatment.