Westmont Initiative Tackles Opioid Epidemic

Deborah Dunn, professor of communication studies, and Rachel Winslow, director of the Westmont Center for Social Entrepreneurship and assistant professor of history, created and began directing WIPDD in 2018 to encourage dialogue on difficult issues in the local community.
On Oct. 24, the group will use a framework established by the National Issues Forums Institute to raise a number of difficult questions with no easy answers:

– Should we consider decriminalizing the use of drugs and focus on dealers and distributors, or does that invite more young people than ever to give dangerous drugs a try?
– Should we do more to strictly enforce current drug laws on dealers and users alike, or will that simply create a revolving door of largely nonviolent offenders through already overcrowded jails?
– Should we recognize that drug addiction is a public health problem and provide treatment centers for everyone who needs them, or does this do little to prevent people from becoming addicted in the first place?
– Should we do much more to regulate the health-care professions and pharmaceutical companies, which have played a central role in prescribing and distributing opioids, or will this approach cause serious suffering for many patients who depend on opioids to relieve chronic pain?