Drug crisis hits close to home 

CINCINNATI, Ohio - Clayton Houdeshell stood behind the University Apartments student residence building at Xavier University, occasionally puffing on a cigarette. He is thin with a short blonde beard. His half-rim glasses frame his bright blue eyes. Smoke from the cigarette curls up into the cool air.

 

“Dog food is what we call it… it turns you into an animal.”

 

Houdeshell, a master’s student at Xavier University, is from Tiffin, one of many towns in Ohio that have been hit hard by the opioid epidemic. A recent Cincinnati Enquirer investigative report revealed that heroin and other opioids kill one American every 16 minutes, more than deaths related to road accidents. 

 

Dan Polster, a United States District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio, believes he can broker a deal among drugmakers, distributers and local governments to bring an end to the crisis. The talks are set to start on January 31 in a Cleveland federal courthouse. 

 

The Associated Press reported that Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine was asked to be in attendance. Other attendees will include officials from the Drug Enforcement Agency, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and representatives from insurance companies. 

 

No specifics were given on others who would be in attendance, since Polster closed the discussions to the public.

 

Polster has previously said that he believes that there needs to be a dramatic reduction of pills available and a way to ensure that they are being used properly. These measures, Polster believes, can help salvage communities ravaged by the epidemic.    

 

For the young people who grew up during the crisis, however, the damage has already been done. 

 

“I remember I lost a guy that I wrestled with,” Houdeshell said. “After I graduated, he overdosed on heroin, and that was shocking because it was one of those things where no one knew. And that’s one of the hardest parts. I’ve lost friends to prescription pain killers… (They committed) suicide because they got too deep in pills... (or) owed people money.” He looked away and inhaled deeply on his cigarette. 

 

The pattern of these hard-hit towns is consistent and familiar: A place that was once a hub of industry saw its employers pack up and leave for cheaper labor in other countries. In the case of Tiffin, a porcelain manufacturing company called American Standard had a plant that employed up to 650 people. However, that number steadily dwindled, and on December 5, 2007, the remaining 200 employees received a notice that the plant would be closing.

 

According to Houdeshell, after the plant closed, people lost hope. Suddenly, they had a lot of time on their hands and felt they needed an escape. 

 

As Houdeshell recalls, people started using prescription pain killers, and it progressed from there. Medicine cabinets were robbed as the townspeople spiraled further into addition. Heroin hit Tiffin when Houdeshell was in high school, between 2008 and 2012.

 

During his freshman year at Heidelberg University, Houdeshell was hanging out with one of his friends when his friend’s uncle pulled up and invited them to ride with him. They got in the car, and Houdeshell sat in the front seat next to the uncle. After some conversation, the uncle found out the Houdeshell was from Tiffin, a town that had already gained notoriety for its heroin use.

 

The uncle then grabbed a couple of baggies of heroin and placed them in Houdeshell’s hands.

 

“It was that real moment of ‘this has killed people that I know,’ and that’s when I realized that I’m hanging out with the wrong people," Housdeshell said. "...When it comes to my relationship with it…I’ve touched it, and I can say that it was just as numbing with that (bag) in my hand, with that little bag that separated the powder from my hand. It was just as numbing to hold that in my palm as it was to hear that my friend had died.”

 

Houdeshell and some of his closer friends stayed away from heroin by smoking pot.

 

“You can still do pot and do your homework,” Houdeshell said. “You can’t do heroin and do your homework.”

 

Still, some of his friends were unable to avoid the consequences of heroin. His friend’s girlfriend went to a hotel that was notorious for being a place where people used.

“My buddy’s girlfriend at the time had apparently done heroin there, and I remember him looking at me and saying, ‘What the f**k do I do?’ I couldn’t imagine being a parent. What the f**k do you do? It’s not that I don’t want to have kids,” Houdeshell said, “but I’m also worried that if I end up back in Tiffin, why the hell would I want kids if I’m going back to the same situation that I’ve experienced things? 

 

"I don’t want…” Houdeshell paused for a moment to compose himself. “…I hate seeing little kids around that. And it goes on in Tiffin, it goes on in Cincy, it’s everywhere.”

 

Despite the efforts of people like Polster, Houdeshell questions if America is ready to solve the opioid crisis or if enough people care to fix the crisis.

 

“I don’t know if America really wants to fix the problem. Why? Why would you care?” he said. “I can’t tell people to care about the issue. I can’t teach you what it’s like to care for other people.”

 

He feels like another part of the problem is the stigma that comes with using. It prevents people from seeking help for themselves or for their friends and family. 

 

He’s never been in the same room as someone who was using, but he has been in the same house. “And that’s the thing,” he explains. “Whether it be a person overdosing or dying from their overdose, it’s always a surprise, isn’t it? I don’t know who found her (a woman living in the house Houdeshell was visiting) first, but it wasn’t as most people said heroin was. You see people on heroin are always nodding off or always just done. She was still sort of there...I don’t know. I straight up left. I said, 'I've seen enough.’ 

 

“In those situations, you just keep your mouth shut. You don’t really talk about it, and I understand that there are a lot of factors that go into it. Like, they might do heroin, but do you really want to destroy their reputation around town?”

 

Despite his own silence in the past, he thinks the best way to start solving the crisis is to be open about drug use and not to shame people into recovery.

 

“There’s nothing to be ashamed about. If you’re having drug issues, there’s nothing to be ashamed about,” Houdeshell said. “It’s gonna suck. It’s gonna be one of the hardest things you’ll ever do in your life, to come out and say that you have a drug problem. But it will be the most revealing thing. And it’s not gonna get any better unless you talk about it, and you’re not going to make your family better by shaming your uncle or your mom or your sister. Talk about it. Let’s figure it out. We can do it.”

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(a version of this article was published in The Xavier Newswire on Nov. 15, 2017)