Last Thursday I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend a Prevention Summit in town, thanks to the Weston County Prevention Task Force, The Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, RT Communications and the Newcastle Police Department. The event featured Ben Cort, who provided marijuana education, focusing on its impact on youth, and Erasmo Carrizosa, who spoke on the opioid crisis in America.
What I learned, besides an incredible wealth of knowledge on both topics, is that prevention is really a community issue that requires community involvement.
Both speakers stressed that a community must be involved to spread the knowledge and keep different drugs from hitting epidemic levels.
Kristi Lipp, director of the local task force, shared the need for the community to be involved and to be aware of the problems. She also said it was important for the community to gain the knowledge necessary to help prevent epidemic-level drug problems.
Marijuana in Colorado, according to Cort, is a booming business, with more dispensaries than there are McDonald’s and Starbucks in the state. He said there is one cannabis shop for every 47 people in smaller communities around Colorado, with more in larger communities.
Wyoming has a unique opportunity to educate the public before the state potentially faces a legal marijuana industry, Cort said. He maintained that the community must be involved in educating its residents to guarantee that Newcastle does not face the same problems as Colorado encountered since legalization there.
Carrizosa also acknowledged the unique opportunity Wyoming has to educate its people on opioid use before the state finds itself in a situation similar to Ohio’s, which has declared a state of emergency because of drug overdoses.
Carrizosa said that 90 Americans die every day from opioid overdose and that over 2 million Americans are dependent on opioids. Wyoming, which does have some opioid use, has not hit the epidemic stage, according to Carrizosa. With community involvement, he said, Wyoming has the opportunity to prevent the opioid crisis from hitting that level.
We all want to see our community as a safe place to raise children. We all want to feel safe walking our streets.
Drugs are here in Newcastle, and several members of our community have problems and struggle with addiction.
We as a community need to join together and support prevention, education and recovery before we find ourselves facing the issues other communities in the country face every day.