ROCKFORD, Mich. (WOOD) — More than 400 parents and students gathered to Rockford High School Tuesday evening to learn about the opioid crisis at an event organizers hope was the first of many held throughout West Michigan.
The opioid epidemic, which is hitting West Michigan along with the rest of the nation, does not discriminate. Anyone could be affected in what is called “the new face of addiction.”
“‘Not my kid, not my house, not my school, not my church, not my problem,'” Jeanne Kapenga said people think of the crisis. “It is a problem.”
She’s a private practice physician in the field of addiction medicine and the president of the local chapter of Families Against Narcotics.
“It just makes common sense to educate the kids now to the dangers of trying opioids even once,” Kapenga said. “So that’s our hope here, is the prevention through education.”
She said meetings like the one held Tuesday are needed to battle a problem that keeps growing.
“Two percent of adults and 2.5 percent of children are addicted to opiate drugs, already, from the state statistics,” Kapenga said.
Speaking at the meeting was Austin Eubanks, a survivor of the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School. Eubanks was wounded in that shooting and his best friend was killed. He told the moving story of the day he saw his best friend die and how he dealt with that pain — and the pain of his wounds — with opiates. He needed pain relief, but he found himself struggling with addiction for years.
“Because of the emotional pain that I was in as a result of that tragedy, I became addicted almost immediately,” Eubanks said.
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