Opioid misuse and overdoses are a serious public health crisis across Washington state and nationwide.
From 2019 to 2021, the annual number of opioid drug overdose deaths in the state nearly doubled. About 55 people in America die each day from an overdose of prescribed or illicit opioids, including fentanyl and heroin.
Real information and education on opioid use must reach communities, said Nicole Rodin, assistant professor at the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, in the latest episode of the Washington State Magazine podcast.
Rodin teams up with other Washington State University faculty and staff, along with colleagues across Washington, to get accurate and useful facts out to people and try to prevent overdoses.
The group, through the Rural Opioid Technical Assistance Collaborative, focuses on rural communities hit hard by opioid use, often with limited medical facilities and support.
In the podcast, Rodin talked with Washington State Magazine editor Larry Clark about the scope of the opioid epidemic, effective education, reducing stigma, and how everyone can lend support.
There’s a need to treat substance use disorders as health care, Rodin said. “It is a disorder. It is a medical condition, and we have yet to treat it that way as a society.”
Listen to the podcast episode, and all other episodes, at magazine.wsu.edu/podcasts.