Personal, public moves needed to end opiate surge

Though overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed 19,000 Ohioans and infected more than 1 million others over the past 15 months, a simultaneous and relentless epidemic refuses to loosen its monstrous grip on our state and nation.

In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic has nourished and strengthened the opiate addiction epidemic in Ohio and elsewhere. After a couple years of slowly declining deaths and emergency-room visits from opiate overdoses, trend lines jettisoned wildly upward last year.

Ironically, a key part of the regimen to control and limit the spread of COVID-19 is the same ingredient many cite as a contributor to the surge of overdose deaths.