Nikki Sixx wrote a powerful piece for the Los Angeles Times on America's opioid crisis that chronicles his own drug abuse and recovery, how addiction has crippled many towns and cities of our nation, and how we need to embrace rehab and remember that addicts are still human. Read an excerpt from his article Nikki Sixx: Take it from a recovering addict, a lot more could be done to end the opioid crisis below:
Heroin nearly killed me. As a matter of fact, it did: For two minutes in 1987 I was pronounced clinically dead from an overdose.
I was at the Franklin Plaza Apartments in Hollywood, shooting up between snorts of cocaine and shots of booze. It was late December 1987. Mötley Crüe had just released our record “Girls Girls Girls” and we were about to tour the world. From the outside looking in, I was living the dream. But in reality, I was in the throes of a disease I couldn’t control, addicted to heroin.
I remember very little about that night, but I know someone called an ambulance and saved my life. Today I am 16 years sober and a decade into recovery advocacy.
What I’ve been through doesn’t make me a policy expert. But it qualifies me to judge the way the United States is handling its latest addiction crisis: Opioid abuse isn’t just making addicts sick, it’s making America sick.
The numbers are devastating. The government estimates that 142 people a day die of drug overdoses. ODs are killing more Americans than car crashes and gun homicides combined. Prescription opioids and heroin are the prime contributors to these statistics.
Once hooked on prescription painkillers, many users turn to heroin, often cut with more lethal drugs, because it’s cheaper and easier to get than another refill. In 2015 (the most recent year for which we have data), there were more than 30,000 opioid overdose deaths nationwide, and the rate is on the rise. Between 2002 and 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heroin use in the U.S. more than doubled, and heroin deaths more than quadrupled.
Now President Trump wants to slash the 2018 Medicaid budget. He’s suggesting deep cuts in funding for treatment, prevention and addiction research. And Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions wants to fill federal prisons with drug addicts instead of getting them help.
Trump makes a show of concern. He convened a commission in March charged with studying the problem, and he has promised to declare opioid addiction a national emergency, which would free up resources for the battle. But he has failed to file the proper paperwork.
Instead, he found time to do some name-calling (“I won New Hampshire,” he told Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, “because New Hampshire is a drug-infested den.”) He lies about the causes of the epidemic, blaming Mexico and China when in fact the responsibility belongs to U.S. drug manufacturers and overzealous doctors pushing prescription painkillers. And then there are those budget cuts.
Americans are dying. Entire towns are being destroyed. Local economies are crippled by addiction. Yet this epidemic can be stopped, it’s solvable.
Trump’s opioid commission quickly submitted an interim report that spells out the right approach: It emphasizes treatment, education about pain management for doctors, research and data collection, and rational “supply reduction.” It spells out policy goals based on facts and science. The president should listen to his own experts. Now.