Re: Opioid addiction and overdoses:

I have read many opinions and solutions from local up to federal level but unfortunately everything I read is so inaccurate. My background to justify that conclusion is: 30 years in health care, personal experience with people in drug addiction, and I am a Lexington pain center patient due to deterioration of spine and fibromyalgia.

Recommendations I suggest, and I hope the right people see this because it will take local and federal support:

1. Any longterm usage (more than 30 days) should only be prescribed by a pain center.

2. The federal system that pharmacists use when someone gets allergy medicine should be utilized for all controlled medicine.

3. Anyone who receives these medications should receive from the drug manufacturers free of charge a daily doser. Many overdoses are due to forgetting if you took it due to extreme pain or age.

4. We have got to stop blaming and labeling and address the problem, especially in our legal system. We have a serious revolving door in our court system. The addiction along with the psychological aspect has to be addressed or more people will die and lives be destroyed. No one wakes up saying they will be an addict.

5. Shut these meth clinics down. You are just creating a new problem. If you are not giving psychological evaluation and help teaching people to cope in healthy ways then you are a problem.

Hopefully these issues will be read by someone who can get it to where it needs to be, and for God’s sake I hope they stop making decisions I am seeing without doing better research.

— Beverly Brewer

Rockwell