EDITORIAL: State tackles new crisis of drug abuse

Gov. Mike Pence reacted by forming a new Task Force on Drug Enforcement, Treatment and Prevention.

Dealing with the problem won’t be cheap, but anything Indiana can do to prevent the spread of addiction will save money in the long run.

The task force called for broader Medicaid coverage to pay for drug treatment, and Pence is looking into that.

He wants to increase the awareness and use of a new law that allows people to use naloxone, which treats drug overdoses. A report this month said 25 people have died from overdoses this year just in Howard County, where Kokomo is the county seat.

Finally, Pence is looking for the best strategies to warn young people against abusing prescription drugs, which leads to heroin use.

U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., has offered his suggestions in a letter to the task force.

Donnelly said he is working to pass a federal law that would take a five-pronged approach to drug abuse:

• better training for medical professionals to prevent overprescribing of pain-killing drugs;

• supporting state programs to monitor use of prescription drugs (Indiana already has one);

• adequate funding for law enforcement;

• expanding access to naloxone; and

• raising awareness of the dangers of abusing drugs.

Donnelly also is looking for ways to encourage more people to work in providing substance-abuse treatment. He said there is a critical shortage of providers in Indiana and the nation.

Donnelly said he is concerned that Indiana is not making the most of its INSPECT program to monitor the use of prescription drugs. INSPECT keeps track of the drugs prescribed for each patient, who prescribed them and which pharmacies dispensed them. Indiana shares its information with 20 other states.

The INSPECT program offers free training programs for hospitals and physicians.

Donnelly said he supports more federal funding for “innovative criminal justice programs” such as drug treatment courts, which channel nonviolent addicts into treatment programs instead of jails.

However, Donnelly said he realizes law enforcement officers need more support, too.

The prescription drug problem needs a different approach than other drug crimes, because people can become addicted without originally intending to become drug abusers.

A transition to heroin can follow when addicts run out of prescription drugs.

Those factors make our state’s new drug crisis somewhat different than northeast Indiana’s long-running battle against methamphetamine.

We remain disappointed that Indiana’s political leaders have failed to tackle our region’s leading drug crisis — methamphetamine — with the same sense of urgency they are showing toward prescription drug and heroin abuse.

We hope that as Indiana finds good strategies to fight prescription drug abuse, some of them can be used against methamphetamine, too.