SOLUTION: Get government to work more effectively. Use a disaster response playbook to organize county government around the opioid epidemic. Approach addicted people with compassion, as you’d approach a person with any other medical condition.

STORY: Addiction hits home for the top dog of a disaster-prone county. An old-school cop gets a wake-up call and learns “handcuffs and a trip to jail” just won’t cut it anymore. Also, we learn what a landslide can teach us about tackling the opioid epidemic.

This season we’re in Snohomish County, Washington which has an oversized share of overdose deaths in the state and is now treating the opioid epidemic like a natural disaster.

LINKS TO MORE INFORMATION AND RESOURCES:

Snohomish County overdose and addiction treatment resource guide. http://snohomishoverdoseprevention.com/treatment-and-support/

Here’s what we refer to as FEMA’s emergency response playbook (the National Incident Management System (NIMS), which outlines the structure of a Multi-Agency Coordination, or MAC, group) https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/148019