IN SOME parts of America, the decadence that is everywhere is especially apparent. In his recent State of the State Address, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin addressed the scourge of heroin and opiate addiction that has been building for years.

In every corner of our state, heroin and opiate drug addiction threatens us. It threatens the safety that has always blessed our state. It is a crisis bubbling just beneath the surface that may be invisible to many, but is already highly visible to law enforcement, medical personnel, social service and addiction treatment providers, and too many Vermont families. It requires all of us to take action before the quality of life that we cherish so much is compromised.

The facts speak for themselves.

• In Vermont, since 2000, we have seen a more than 770% increase in treatment for all opiates.

• What started as an Oxycontin and prescription drug addiction problem in Vermont has now grown into a full-blown heroin crisis.

• We have seen an over 250% increase in people receiving heroin treatment here in Vermont since 2000, with the greatest percentage increase, nearly 40%, in just the past year.

• In 2013, there were twice as many federal indictments against heroin dealers than in the prior two years, and over five times as many as had been obtained in 2010.

• Last year, we had nearly double the number of deaths in Vermont from heroin overdose as the prior year.

Some of you may have seen the film made by Bess O’Brien, “The Hungry Heart,” which focuses on one Vermont community’s struggle to save its children from this growing epidemic.

Bess tells the story through Dr. Fred Holmes, a pediatrician who spent 43 years taking care of young Vermonters in St. Albans, some of whom became addicts. When Dr. Holmes first investigated opiate addiction in an effort to help, he learned just how devastating it can be and how little most of us understand it. Dr. Holmes said, “these kids don’t look different, walk different, talk different. It’s just the nature of their disease is different.”

He said, “I was clueless. I figured that it was something I ought to be able to do something about, just like diabetes or epilepsy or asthma or ear infections.” But he quickly learned about addiction, recognizing that his patients, as he put it, had “a relentless relapsing illness that is potentially fatal.”

He realized that his obligation was to help them treat that illness. When he retired last summer, he was treating more than 80 kids for opiate addiction in his small practice.

The stories of these young Vermonters break your heart.

Dustin Machia, one of Dr. Holmes’ patients, was raised by his hard-working, supportive family on a dairy farm. Dustin started using drugs in 10

th grade, during a 15-minute break between school exams when a bunch of his friends offered him Oxycontin. He became an addict, hard and fast. His addiction quickly went from $100 a week to $3500 a week – that’s $500 a day. He found, like most opiate addicts, that drugs transformed his way of life and altered his moral compass. He needed drugs to survive, and he stole to pay for his addiction. He even stole more than $20,000 worth of farm tools and equipment from his own parents. Dustin said, “be careful because your addiction is waiting out in the driveway, just getting stronger, just waiting for you to slip up and take you away.” His family knows too well the crushing hurt and harm that comes from opiate addiction, even as they have stuck with him throughout his disease. As his mom said, “My son is an addict, and I love him with all my heart.” Dustin has now been clean more than 5 years. [cont.]

In this article, a mother of three explains how she became addicted to opiates.

— Comments —

Kadie writes:

How ironic that Vermont was listed by Gallup as the least religious state in the country for 2013. Does anyone see a connection here?

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