An Ohio police department made the decision to release a graphic picture of a couple overdosing on heroin in a car with their four-year-old son in the backseat. They had two reasons for showing the picture that some are calling offensive. First, to show firsthand how dangerous heroin is, especially while driving. Secondly, for the young boy. “This child can’t speak for himself, but we are hopeful his story can convince another user to think twice about injecting this poison while having a child in their custody,” the Facebook post read. Both of these reasons are perfectly logical. With drug use on the rise, children should not have to witness or put in the situation of watching their parental figures using drugs.
9.4 percent of the population, aged 12 or older, used an illicit drug in the drug past month. How have we allowed for this as a nation to occur? Last year, 47,055 people in the United States died from overdosing on drugs, which is 1.5 times greater than car crashes. Half of these deaths were from painkillers and heroin. Why is nobody speaking up? A lot of people say that it’s drug users own fault when they overdose, but where are those people in this circumstance, where there was a child being driven by a man overdosing on heroin? We need to stop thinking about the individual and start taking responsibility as a community to help those dependent on drugs. If a person is addicted to drugs, they need help. Addiction needs to be viewed as a sickness, not a crime, except in circumstances where other’s lives are at risk. These adults in this circumstance need to be held accountable because they were not thinking about their son in the backseat or the other drivers on the road.
I have fortunately never lost anybody that I care about to a drug overdose, but I cannot imagine how their loved ones feel. That feeling of knowing that their death could have easily been prevented if they had just stopped and gotten the help that they needed. That they promised that they wouldn’t relapse and that they were fine, but somehow it went all wrong. When a person dies from a drug overdose, it hurts everybody around them. I’ll never forget when Cory Monteith from "Glee" overdosed. I didn’t understand why he used drugs; he was famous, wealthy, and very successful. His life was cut short because of his addiction, and if had gotten more help, then he might have still alive. This just shows how anybody, even the people you least expect it, could be struggling with addiction.
"Drugs ruin people's lives, break up families and have disastrous effects on our communities," Adam Rickett.
