美国国家公共电台 NPR A Rural Community Decided To Treat Its Opioid Problem Like A Natural Disaster

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Rural Americans say drug abuse and addiction¹, including opioid addiction, are the most urgent health problems facing their communities. That's according to a new poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Now one county in western Washington is taking a unique approach to tackle the problem. Anna Boiko-Weyrauch of Finding Fixes podcast reports how that works.

ANNA BOIKO-WEYRAUCH, BYLINE²: Back when Ty Trenary was the police chief of Stanwood, Wash., population 7,000 people, he thought rural communities like his were immune from the opioid crisis until, one day, a mother walked through his door.

TY TRENARY: And basically said, chief, you have a heroin³ problem in your community. And I remember thinking, well, that's not possible. This is Stanwood. And heroin is in big cities, you know, with homeless populations. It's not in rural America.

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: For decades, heroin was a big city problem but no longer. In the recent NPR poll, about half of rural Americans said the opioid problem in their communities has worsened in the last five years. Now Trenary agrees. A few years ago, he was elected sheriff of Snohomish County. He toured the jail and saw this.

TRENARY: Very, very sick, very, very sick people because detoxing from heroin is like having the worst possible stomach virus you can have. People are proned out. They're, you know, they're just suffering.

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: The county jail had become a de facto detox center. At any given time, around half the inmates⁴ were withdrawing from heroin. It was a dangerous and expensive situation.

TRENARY: It took becoming the sheriff to see the impacts inside the jail with heroin abuse, to see the impacts on the community across the entire county for me to realize that we had to change a lot about what we were doing.

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: So they did. Last year, Snohomish County - where Stanwood is located - declared the opioid epidemic⁵ a life-threatening emergency. Now they're responding to the opioid epidemic as if it were a natural disaster, the same way they'd mobilize to respond to a landslide⁶ or flu pandemic. Snohomish County is the first county in the country to treat it this way.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: State patrol also advised the road is flooded. Lines are down.

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: The idea grew out of their experience with another tremendous disaster in the county.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: This is a major slide here.

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: In 2014, the town of Oso, Wash., experienced one of the deadliest landslides⁷ in American history. Forty-three people died. Shari Ireton is the sheriff's director of communications. She took reporters to see the landslide. And she ended up learning something, too.

SHARI IRETON: It was amazing to see Black Hawk⁸ helicopters flying with our helicopter and a fixed⁹ wing over the top of that and all in coordination¹⁰ with each other, all with the same objective, which is life safety.

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: Coordination, life safety. What if they used that system of everyone working together across government agencies to tackle the opioid epidemic? County leaders took the idea and ran with it.

(CROSSTALK)

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: Now their response to the opioid epidemic is run out of a special emergency operation center, a lot like during the Oso landslide. Every two weeks, representatives from across local government meet - people in charge of everything from fire trucks to the dump. The technical name for this group is the Multi-Agency Coordination group or MAC group. It comes straight out of FEMA's emergency response playbook.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Six ten is completed.

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: They talk through PowerPoint slides.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: I think 7.5 is kind of...

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: The numbers refer to items on their to-do list. There are seven big goals, like reduce opioid misuse¹¹ and reduce damage to the community. Each goal is broken down into smaller pieces, like distributing needle cleanup kits¹² and a project to train school teachers to recognize trauma¹³ and addiction. This to-do list is over 100 items long.

IRETON: Some of these goals are really long term. I mean, they're going to take years, decades.

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: Ireton is also the spokesperson for this group. She says, the key is to be realistic.

IRETON: So if you set an objective for yourself to just end the opioid epidemic, you're probably never going to be successful in either - in any of our lifetimes. By breaking it down, it's like eating an elephant. You just can eat one piece at a time - breaking it down into a piece that you can actually digest.

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: They make transportation easier for people in drug treatment. They train family members and others in the community on steps to reduce overdoses with medicine. And they actually send teams of police officers and social workers to help addicted¹⁴ homeless people.

(SOUNDBITE OF WALKING THROUGH WOODS)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Thanks.

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: In Marysville, Wash., rain drips through a cedar¹⁵ forest next to a strip mall. Officer Mike Buell cracks jokes with some illegal campers.

MIKE BUELL: (Laughter) Hi, Crystal. I'm Mike.

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: The woods throughout this county are the sight of homeless encampments with piles of spent syringes and trash. Buell's job isn't to arrest the campers but help them get drug treatment and housing.

BUELL: We're your transport. We're basically your Uber. We'll get you to and from your appointments.

BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: The new approach is paying off. The teams have helped hundreds find housing and drug treatment. That's just one item in the county's plan. And problems with opioids are far from solved here. So Snohomish County will keep working on their large and small goals - one bite at a time. For NPR News, I'm Anna Boiko-Weyrauch.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: This story was reported by Finding Fixes, a podcast about solutions to the opioid epidemic.

1 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 heroin   

n.海洛因

参考例句：

• Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
• Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。

4 inmates   

n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• One of the inmates has escaped. 被收容的人中有一个逃跑了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The inmates were moved to an undisclosed location. 监狱里的囚犯被转移到一个秘密处所。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

6 landslide   

n.(竞选中)压倒多数的选票；一面倒的胜利

参考例句：

• Our candidate is predicated to win by a landslide.我们的候选人被预言将以绝对优势取胜。
• An electoral landslide put the Labour Party into power in 1945.1945年工党以压倒多数的胜利当选执政。

7 landslides   

山崩( landslide的名词复数 )； （山坡、悬崖等的）崩塌； 滑坡； （竞选中）一方选票占压倒性多数

参考例句：

• Landslides have cut off many villages in remote areas. 滑坡使边远地区的许多村庄与外界隔绝。
• The storm caused landslides and flooding in Savona. 风暴致使萨沃纳发生塌方和洪灾。

8 hawk   

n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员

参考例句：

• The hawk swooped down on the rabbit and killed it.鹰猛地朝兔子扑下来,并把它杀死。
• The hawk snatched the chicken and flew away.老鹰叼了小鸡就飞走了。

9 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

10 coordination   

n.协调，协作

参考例句：

• Gymnastics is a sport that requires a considerable level of coordination.体操是一项需要高协调性的运动。
• The perfect coordination of the dancers and singers added a rhythmic charm to the performance.舞蹈演员和歌手们配合得很好，使演出更具魅力。

11 misuse   

n.误用，滥用；vt.误用，滥用

参考例句：

• It disturbs me profoundly that you so misuse your talents.你如此滥用自己的才能，使我深感不安。
• He was sacked for computer misuse.他因滥用计算机而被解雇了。

12 kits   

衣物和装备( kit的名词复数 )； 成套用品； 配套元件

参考例句：

• Keep your kits closed and locked when not in use. 不用的话把你的装备都锁好放好。
• Gifts Articles, Toy and Games, Wooden Toys, Puzzles, Craft Kits. 采购产品礼品，玩具和游戏，木制的玩具，智力玩具，手艺装备。

13 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

14 addicted   

adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的

参考例句：

• He was addicted to heroin at the age of 17.他17岁的时候对海洛因上了瘾。
• She's become addicted to love stories.她迷上了爱情小说。

15 cedar   

n.雪松，香柏(木)

参考例句：

• The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely.那棵雪松约有五尺高,风姿优美。
• She struck the snow from the branches of an old cedar with gray lichen.她把长有灰色地衣的老雪松树枝上的雪打了下来。