As a parent of an addict, I follow the Drug Taskforce meetings with great interest. In the past I’ve tried to explain to the powers that be how they have actually created a demand for heroin and at the same time caused the price of legal opioids to go up.

When I first moved here in 2001, the cost of a 7.5 milligram Vicodin or Percocet was $3, and a stamp bag of heroin was more expensive. Today the cost of those prescription drugs on the black market has skyrocketed to $10 per pill, and the cost of a stamp bag of heroin has dropped to $5.

Now that the government has created a database to log prescriptions of opioids, two things have happened. The amount of dollars paid to hospitals through Medicare and Medicaid has gone down, and emergency room physician bonuses have gone down as well.

Doctors are afraid to write scripts, even to senior citizens in pain. I have a 95-year-old neighbor who was referred to the pain clinic because her physician is now afraid he may lose his license. For a person her age the concern should be on comfort, not addiction. People must be made aware that at some point in the near future, we too shall be in need of such care and meds.

The very people trying to find a way to stop the trade of heroin in Butler County have actually created the need and the market. While I find the article District Attorney Richard Goldinger wrote (“Not in My Backyard”) was a wonderful thought, he did not address the problem, which is: how does he uncreate the market that they set in place?

The law says there must be three controlled buys from a dealer before police can step in. This has to change. If we can point out where the dealers live and work, then it should only take Marshall Dillon to bust the door in and arrest the dealers. Stop giving them probation and start passing out prison time.

At meeting after meeting I hear parents cry over the way addiction has affected their families. Perhaps it is high time to change the way we vote. The politicians will take notice then.