Parents and the public can help stop drug abuse

Learn to Cope founder Joanne Peterson
(The Enterprise files)

It's been a long week for members of Learn to Cope. The powerful and haunting series that The Enterprise staff have worked so hard on for more than a year is over. We have been waiting anxiously for this for a long time. We knew the stories would be powerful. After all, living this brings us all to our knees. No member of our group had any idea how captivating and, at the same time, painful it would be to relive our daily nightmares in print.
  I have had tears in my eyes all week. We did this for you. We did this to get our dignity back and we did this for your children in the hopes they will never try these evil drugs. The courage of all who came out of the darkness of the stigma which hovers in our souls is nothing short of amazing. Every person who took part in this with such bravery should be thanked by every parent who lives in the 28 communities this story covered because there was a time when our lives were just like yours.
  But this was necessary, and we shared our pain along with other families who have suffered the ultimate loss of their children due to this monster. The beautiful precious lives of the fallen angels will not have ended in vain. We shared our tragedies with you, for you, in the hopes it never happens in your family. Maybe, just maybe, you will feel a little differently about us now and realize this was not our fault. Our children have suffered and their lives are precious to us.
  We were brought here kicking and screaming; not one of us chose this. But we are here and we will survive this, and we hope there will be fewer families burying their kids because this series helps us to demand a change.
  How can the public help? Demand affordable and available treatment for young men and women who are already suffering - and that means at least 30 days, not three or four. When there is inadequate treatment for the insured and the uninsured alike we all pay for it in many ways.
 This is a crisis for public safety as well. When a family can't get treatment, their sons and daughters are out there looking for ways to afford their next fix and that affects you. This drug takes a person and replaces him or her with something else.
  Young women can't get a place to recover if there is barely anything to choose from, so if they don't die, they will hit the streets. Young men will commit the crimes, and we all suffer. This puts you and your
  children at risk as well. I have witnessed moms of daughters waiting months for a bed for their daughters. This is truly barbaric. If a young woman wants to recover in a supportive recovery environment, she can't, because there aren't enough beds and the waiting lists are so long some die waiting. They give up. Parents run out of resources and money paying privately. Anyone seeking treatment should get it.
  Drug education in the schools should be mandatory, and there should not be any sugarcoating. Kids need to hear the devastating truth.
  Pharmacies need to be linked to stop the flow of multiple prescriptions being picked up to be sold on the streets. Medical schools need to make addiction a part of their curriculum to learn that a prescription pain killer or an anxiety medicine may destroy a person. Emergency rooms need to be more diligent when they prescribe drugs like Klonopin, Ativan and Percocet. Why not begin with a non-narcotic like Tylenol for a 17-year-old unless it's absolutely necessary.
  OxyContin should be prescribed only in extreme circumstances, such as for cancer patients. Any member of Learn to Cope will attest that it all began with OxyContin and 2001 was "the year."
  Another angel has fallen this week, in the midst of all of this, and our hearts and prayers are with her family. Massachusetts youth needs to be saved before the death toll gets so high, it is too late.
  I hope you read the series and I hope you pray for us because we need your prayers. We pray that you never have to walk through the doors of our meetings. We will be out there fighting to save your children so there is no more room for judgment. Let's end this circle of madness together. We were not put on this Earth to suffer.

  Joanne Peterson is the founder of Learn to Cope, a support system consisting of parents of children addicted to drugs. Their Web site is www.learn2cope.org