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fully addressed. We will be leaving the virus pandemic but remain in a deadlier, more long-standing epidemic that in many instances hasn’t been dealt with. I speak of course, of the epidemic of opioid addictions, overdoses and deaths. By the time you read this my 23-year-old son4
will have been
dead from such an overdose for nearly a month. Four or five weeks will have passed since he collapsed, passed out and drifted into death. He is now part of a lost generation. His best friend suffered the same fate just over two years ago. And then, horrifically, two days after Wells died another good friend he met in rehab passed away. My son Wells suffered so much after his best pal died. He lived an anguished life over the past 24 months. Near-death experiences from overdoses certainly weren’t everyday oc- currences with him, but they happened often enough that we knew what the drill was. We knew the need for chest com- pressions, counting one, two, three, four while listening to the
Mark Hayes and his son, Wells.
neutral calm voice of the 911 dispatcher. We knew that help would arrive quickly. We knew Narcan could be administered with near-miraculous results. We also knew it was too late this last time. I tried. Nearly two minutes of me pushing on his chest. Oh, how I tried. Many other friends of my children have died. I can quickly count five without even trying. With just a little effort the number gets closer to 10. It happens so frequently that there’s almost a callousness from the remainder of us. “Oh, there’s another one. When will it end?” Well, when will it end? How many people must die? Like the coronavirus, opioid addic- tion knows no boundaries. Wealthy, poor, educated or not, male, female. If you know a group of people under 30 or 35 there is a high likelihood that someone in that group has an opioid problem. Lots of them start on pills, “hydros” and “oxys.”5
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Some don’t do pills but try other things. Regardless, in all too many instances black tar heroin is just plain cheap. Just a few dollars for a hit. As I’ve said many times, the illegal drug manufacturing world cares nothing about the quality control of their product. Tus, it matters little that the concentration of the drug or the mixture with death traps like fentanyl are so high that death is
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a very real possibility even for the most casual of users. In some instances, what’s sold as heroin may in reality be fentanyl. One may as well put a gun to their head if that’s the case. Tat’s a high that nobody recovers from. Tese drugs produce a high that ends in a pleading, screaming mother wanting her child back. Tey cause funerals attended by family torn to shreds by the death of a young person whose life had just barely begun. Grief so very profound that it hurts. It quite literally hurts in the chest as though a force so strong is tearing through the rib cage and brutalizing the heart. It is the worst possible thing to witness and be a part of. It is my reality and it is the reality of my wife Alison. My dear precious spouse now faces mother- hood with only three of her four children. She faces every wak- ing minute without her baby boy. And she faces most sleeping minutes tortured with horrible visions and what ifs. Tat is the harsh, vicious and brutal truth of opioid addiction. Tat is our life now and forever more. Te combination of COVID-19 and opioids in Arkansas is a hell on earth. We are lucky, however, because we are assured by virtually every expert that a vaccine will be created for the virus and it likely will be done in record time. Tat would be a miracle for sure. But our society will continue with this plague of addiction caused by manufacturers and distributors placing profits before people. Tey value cold hard cash more than Wells, more than his friends and more than an entire generation. Amid our new normal of social distancing, there is a new surge of fatal opioid overdoses. Tat’s right — while taking precautions to stay away from the pandemic, the epi- demic is killing at a record pace. Tere are multiple reasons this is happening. Certainly, the stress and depression of be- ing alone leads some away from sobriety and into the warm, welcoming death hug of heroin. For others the inability to get to daily or weekly sobriety meetings or church services pushes them to use again. And for those who use suboxone in their fight for sobriety, the inability to get to the doctor or the clinic or both to get the prescription updated leads to the same dark place. I fear we’ll see more suffering and more death. I fear for my children, your children and grandchil- dren. I fear for my grieving wife. I fear for Wells’ dad, his aunts and uncles, and his grandparents. All is not lost. Tere are some simple steps that can save
lives. Learn CPR. Carry a dose of Narcan. Talk to your kids and their friends. More importantly, listen to your kids and their friends regardless of whether you like what you’re hear- ing. Te truth is often ugly and painful. Ignoring the truth is worse. Ignoring equals death, plain and simple. What else can be done? Most of you good readers are familiar with the League’s litigation efforts taken in conjunction with the Association of Arkansas Counties. As I’m writing this, the likelihood of a favorable settlement is beginning to emerge from the fog and
COUNTY LINES, SPRING 2020
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