WASHINGTON, D.C. — Huntington Mayor Steve Williams will join leaders from across the country at the White House Friday for a discussion on the opioid epidemic.
The “Best Practices in Combatting the Opioid Epidemic: A Conference with State and Local Leaders” will be hosted by the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Williams said it will be another opportunity for Huntington to learn what’s working in other parts of the U.S.
“When we collaborate and we share with one another we all walk away as though we have velcro and then we have things attached to it that we take home that we see others have been successful in doing,” Williams told MetroNews.
Williams said Huntington is in a now in a position to tell those representing other cities and counties what works and what doesn’t.
“Our overdoses now are down 41 percent year over year, that’s unheard elsewhere in the country. The deaths are down 60 percent year over year, that’s unheard of,” Williams said, adding the city has a long way to go.
Huntington has been successful with its Quick Response Team. The team was created to become active in every overdose incident in the city. The collaborative effort involves health professionals, social workers, and law enforcement all working proactively in hopes of keeping people from overdosing or at least stopping them from doing it repeatedly.
Those who require medical attention after an overdose are visiting by a team member within 72 hours of the incident.
Williams said when he first took office four years ago he thought the drug problem was a problem for the police department to handle. He said there was a plan in place to arrest everything they could who crossed the Ohio River bringing drugs into Huntington but they learned fighting the battle would involve much more.
“We had to focus on saving lives. We had to focus on getting people into treatment as well as arrest people who were destroying our neighborhoods by selling this stuff,” Williams said.
Friday’s meeting at the White is scheduled to last for about three and a half hours. Williams said it will likely also include some discussion about how an improving economy can help fight the epidemic.
“Everything that we’re doing is connected. It all comes back to improving the economy, creating jobs, giving hope to individuals and their families and then we can defeat all of the negative things that are occurring around us,” he said.
The meeting begins at 9 a.m. Friday.