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When a star football player who had recently graduated from Spring Mills High School in Martinsburg, WV, was found dead after taking "bad opioids," his former teacher, Jessica Salfia, penned a Facebook note begging the public not to see him as just another statistic in a state associated with drug overdoses.
She wanted the world to know Jorge Armando MercadoMedrano was a guy who "hated failure, who was always optimistic and believed in his team's ability to win, who smiled every Friday at me as he walked by my door and asked if I was coming to his game, who should be remembered as someone who was smart, creative, funny, and kind."
Unfortunately, in many places, such occurrences are becoming the "new normal."
A recent report by researchers at Penn State University found heroin and prescription painkiller abuse on the rise, thanks to wider availability. Across the U.S., 28,647 deaths, or 61% of all drug overdose deaths, were linked to opioid use in 2014. Since 2000, the Center for Disease Control reports the opioid overdose rate has tripled, while deaths from heroin overdose have quadrupled over the past decade.
The epidemic's effects have sent shock waves through American society, and schools and universities have been no exception. The increased demand on already taxed districts and colleges to provide increased counseling services, as well as gird against the possibility of such incidents is yet another challenge in the education landscape. The National Institute on Drug Abuse says one in 12 high school seniors reported having tried Vicodin for recreational use. One in 20 reported abusing Oxycontin. And for college aged students, one in 10 reported having a prescription for OxyContin or Vicodin, but 20.2% said they took more than they were supposed to.
The 41st annual Monitoring the Future report, conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Michigan and sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, found 5.4% of teens used narcotics other than heroin in the past year. Those might include morphine, Oxycontin, Vicodin, or codeine, all of which are addictive opioids and proven gateways to heroin. Half of heroin users report they began by using painkillers. Most cite cost as their motive for switching over to heroin, since the street...