Drug Addiction: Is The Situation Hopeless?

Two men died from suspected heroin overdoses down the road my house in Derby Wednesday.

Two more people overdosed across the Housatonic River in Shelton.

Newspapers have written countless stories on addiction in my 15 years or so as a reporter.

I can’t think of an angle that hasn’t been covered (although Gov. Malloy apparently missed them all, according to an interview on NPR last week).

We all know drugs are bad. We all know about addiction. We all know what it does to people and families.

Heck, you can’t escape it. There’s a sub-genre of entertainment dedicated to addiction.

Celebrity Rehab.”

Intervention.”

On Netflix every third choice has cartel” in the title.

How’s that for awareness?”

And yet more people are dying — at least from opioids.” You know, the drugs we see advertised on television.

We talked Monday with Matt DeRienzo, a former newspaper and editor, about how the Torrington-area reacted to stories about overdoses in that community.

Then we talked to Pam Mautte of the Greater Valley Substance Abuse Action Council about what her group is seeing and doing locally.

Click the play button above or below to listen.

HERE IS a post from our Facebook page from last week. We tried to foster a civil exchange of ideas on the subject of addiction.

We all know drug addiction is a major problem.And we all know drug addiction has been a major problem — for generations.So … what now?

Posted by Valley Independent Sentinel on Thursday, February 18, 2016

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