Alcohol & Substance Abuse

Legislators, police officers and behavior health specialists are gathering together this weekend in Juneau for a townhall discussion on heroin. They’ll be focused on finding local solutions to help people suffering with addiction.

One approach for battling addiction and other behavioral health issues lies just outside our front doors.

I’d been through treatment and transition programs before, but none of them worked like Juneau’s halfway house and its alcohol treatment services. I wanted to put a finger on what worked, so I went back to the halfway house and spoke to a client.

“We have stores in Nome. We have a liquor store in McGrath, Alaska. We have a store in King Salmon. So we understand the sensitivity in the community,” said the general manager of the business with one of Bethel’s two liquor licenses.

People still think that abuse of opioid painkillers is something that criminals do, a study of news media coverage finds. Options like expanded access to treatment are rarely mentioned.

The opposition was centered on marijuana oils, concentrates and edibles. But municipalities can’t cherry pick on their commercial pot bans, they must be all or nothing.