There's No Good Plan to Stop 100,000 Opioid Deaths a Year

Quick to Listen

Christianity Today

Religion, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.3 • 622 Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2021

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

100,000 Americans died from April 2020 to April 2021 due to opioids, according to numbers released this week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The majority of the deaths have come via fentanyl, which accounted for more than 75 percent of all fatalities. Most of the time fentanyl has been used in combination with drugs like methamphetamine or cocaine. Who were those who lost their lives? According to the New York Times: The vast majority of these deaths, about 70 percent, were among men between the ages of 25 and 54. And while the opioid crisis has been characterized as one primarily impacting white Americans, a growing number of Black Americans have been affected as well. There were regional variations in the death counts, with the largest year-over-year increases — exceeding 50 percent — in California, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia and Kentucky. Vermont’s toll was small, but increased by 85 percent during the reporting period. This week on Quick to Listen, we wanted to talk about the opioid crisis. What is our response as Christians who are in relationship with those affected? What is our responsibility when we are far away? Andrea “Andi” Clements is professor and assistant chair of the psychology department at East Tennessee State University and is co-founder of Uplift Appalachia, which helps churches care for addicted people. She is on the leadership team of the Strong BRAIN Institute, which studies childhood resilience. Clements joined global media manager Morgan Lee and executive editor Erik Petrik to discuss when she first realized that opioid addiction had entered her community, why churches are part of the solution to the crisis, and how being in relationship with the addicted has changed her faith. What is Quick to Listen? Read more. Rate Quick to Listen on Apple Podcasts Follow the podcast on Twitter Follow this week's hosts on Twitter: Morgan Lee and Ted Olsen Read Ted's Precious Moments article: What Steadfast Looks Like in a Revolution Music by Sweeps Quick to Listen is produced Morgan Lee and Matt Linder The transcript is edited by Faith Ndlovu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you in part by The Apologetics Guy Show, the podcast that helps
0:07.1	you find clear answers to tough questions about Christianity. Learn to explain your faith with
0:12.5	courage and compassion. Join Moody Bible Institute professor Dr. Mikhail Del Rosario at
0:18.7	apologeticsky guy.com.
0:28.9	Hey, one programming note that we thought we'd let you y'all know, thanks for listening to Quick to Listen.
0:38.4	We are going to take a break. We almost never take a break with Quick to Listen. We have done episodes over holidays, vacations.
0:41.3	You've heard a lot of great guest hosts.
0:49.8	But we are going to take a real break over the holidays, starting here at Thanksgiving, going through Christmas and New Year's. And we'll be back in early 2022.
1:00.0	And over that time, we are going to rethink some of the stuff we're doing with Quick to Listen.
1:00.8	We dig it.
1:02.5	We think it can be better.
1:09.9	We're going to figure out how we would love it if you told us what you think would be better also about Quick to Listen, you know, and we can think fairly radically
1:12.2	about that. Email to send stuff to is podcast at Christianity.com. You might want to put
1:17.7	Quick to Listen in the subject line because, as you can imagine, we're getting a lot of
1:21.4	Maris Hill email to that address as well. And yeah, we're eager to hear from you, eager
1:27.2	to make the show better.
1:29.1	I'll just add one thing, Ted. Like, I know, Ted, you've been here for a year and a half, I want to say.
1:36.6	But we have been doing this podcast for almost six years. And the format, as some of you,
1:43.6	no doubt know, has largely stayed the same and there's
1:47.6	strengths to that format and there's also weaknesses to that format. So that's why it would be
1:53.9	helpful to you to bring your imagination. We're also closing in on 300 episodes. There's lots of
1:58.5	milestones that are soon to be reached, but also ways that we think
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