WASHINGTON D.C. — Huntington Mayor Steve Williams represented his city, West Virginia and many small communities throughout the United States internationally in the fight against opioid addiction at meetings in Washington, D.C. Monday.
Williams participated in the Canada-U.S. Roundtable on the Opioid Crisis at The Pew Charitable Trusts, an event sponsored by the Cross-Border Health Foundation, World Health Innovation Network and Council of the Great Lakes Region.
“What we’re working on in Huntington, the state of West Virginia, and throughout the nation is an international problem,” Williams said. “We are having active, robust conversations about what we’re doing to overcome the ravages of addiction. What’s fascinating to see is we are all doing most of the same things.”
According to a release, the goal of the event is to exchange best practices in innovation to address problematic opioid use, including prevention, treatment and recovery; and to identify opportunities for collaboration, such as surveillance, research, training, and standards.
“What I am trying to say to them is small towns and small communities can be laboratories for innovation,” Williams said. “We can identify sooner what works and we can identify faster what is not working. We can more quickly identify what adjustments need to be made.”
“Our size works to our benefit. We can personally respond to the issues and frankly, we have resources that are hiding in plain sight. We are having to be much more innovated, because those large communities and cities have the resources. We could use some of those resources but the fact is we have one thing that they don’t have. It’s an Appalachian mindset. We take what is given to us and we find ways to re-purpose things and put them to good use.”
Last year in the United States, more than 72,000 people died from a drug overdose. West Virginia’s drug overdose death rate is roughly two and a half times the average US rate, according to the CDC.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” Williams said. “The only way that communities are starting to overcome this is when communities stand together and that is our strength in West Virginia. That’s our strength in our communities. Everybody has a role to play.”
For more information about the event and to view the agenda, visit https://www.crossborderhealth.org/opioid-roundtable.