Highlands program to focus on opioid addiction

Opioid addiction will be the subject of a movie and discussion panel at Highlands High School on Wednesday.

The school district and the Allegheny-Kiski Health Foundation are sponsoring the workshop “Opioid Addiction: True Confessions of Pain, Misery and Destruction” in the high school auditorium.

Middle and high school students and their families are encouraged to attend.

The panel will include recovering addicts, drug and alcohol therapists, law enforcement and parents who lost children from an opioid addiction, according to substitute Superintendent Monique Mawhinney.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were more than 70,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2017, up almost 10 percent from 2016. Opioids were cited as the main driver of drug overdose deaths, being involved in 47,600, or about 68 percent, of all drug overdose deaths in 2017.

Pennsylvania had the third-highest death rate involving drug overdoses, 44 per 100,000, coming after Ohio in second with 46 per 100,000. West Virginia had the most, with 58 per 100,000.

“The district is having this event because opioid addiction is a major epidemic and students and parents need to understand the devastating results it can have on an individual and their family,” Mawhinney said.

“I believe this is the first type of event the Highlands School District has held on this topic,” she said. “My goal is to provide more parent workshops and training on issues/topics that impact our students so that parents can become more educated and knowledgeable on issues that can significantly impact their children’s lives.”

On Wednesday, Gov. Tom Wolf announced that agencies in Allegheny, Armstrong, Butler, Fayette, Greene and Washington counties are among 16 statewide that will share a $15 million federal grant designed to boost support services for people battling opioid addiction and help prevent overdose deaths.