The last thing anyone would have expected 49 years ago, when Ocean Pines came into existence, was that the community would find itself with a heroin problem. But that’s what’s happening, according to Police Chief Dave Massey, who said that this, one of the safest population centers in the state, saw 70 overdose cases in the last two years.
If that many overdoses don’t qualify as a “problem” nothing does. Even more worrisome is that Ocean Pines is not the typical Eastern Shore community. It has no deep pockets of poverty, derelict neighborhoods or other areas that foster the growth of criminal elements, and that suggests the tragedy of heroin addiction, as a percentage of the population, is worse in other Worcester County towns.
As has been said numerous times in the past few years, opiate addiction is no longer the secretive habit of murky city dwellers who exist on the fringes of society. Neither is this affliction limited to the type of person you try not to see as he or she huddles near a steam vent in the city or sleeps on the landing at the subway station.
Those were city-type matters then and just didn’t happen on the Eastern Shore, where no one would ever have entertained the notion of sticking a needle into him or herself to get high.
That, obviously, has changed, as people here gravitate toward heroin as a substitute for the more expensive prescription pain pills they might have encountered in the medicine cabinet at home, or were introduced to by a “friend.”
As Chief Massey is aware, heroin addiction is not a problem the police will solve alone. They can only respond to reports of illegal drug-related behavior; they can’t necessarily prevent an individual from slipping into that abyss.
Public education and public awareness play big roles in that regard, beginning with being sure those prescription pain pills are secure at home, insisting on knowing who family members associate with, and being ready to intervene if friends or family members begin to exhibit risky behavior.
Heroin addiction is no longer someone else’s trouble. It’s everyone’s concern and everyone needs to help stop its spread.