On Monday, The Tribune’s top story covered the inaugural Family Fun Days in Chesapeake by Riverside Recovery Services. Monday’s edition of The Tribune also discussed the potential treatment house Riverside Recovery wishes to establish in the coming months.

Tuesday’s issue of The Tribune, however, showed that the leaders and citizens of Chesapeake are not quite ready for a difference to be made in the drug epidemic destroying the community around them. Chesapeake Mayor Tommy Templeton referred to the potential treatment center as a “burden on our village”. Mr. Templeton, do you not see what a burden drug addiction is on your village? Do you not see the staggering amount of lives lost, families torn apart and crimes committed due to drug addiction in Lawrence County?

You worry that opening an in-patient treatment center in your village will put a burden on your police force. Have you not considered how burdened local police are with calls of overdoses, children needing removed from homes, domestic violence, theft, and other issues caused by drug addiction? And Mr. Cochrane, you may not be happy with a drug treatment program in your village…so are you happy with the drug problem in your village?

I just have to know why someone would be so vehemently opposed to a program that could positively impact the lives of not only drug addicts in Chesapeake, but residents of the village as a whole.

As sad as it is to say, the knee-jerk reaction to oppose the opening of a drug treatment center is solely a sign of ignorance. Everyone knows Lawrence County is in the grips of a drug epidemic and has been for quite some time.

Thankfully, there are people such as Amy Smart and the staff at Riverside Recovery that are coming up with new ideas every day to fight this disease that affects every person in the community in some form or another.

However, local governments are so quick to make their judgments that they won’t even consider the benefits a program such as Riverside Recovery could bring to the community. Mayor Templeton, and citizens of Chesapeake, please realize that by turning down this offer you are only allowing the addiction problem to grow and worsen.

If you want to improve the community of Chesapeake, then open your doors to the Riverside Recovery home. You can bring as many businesses or tear down as many vacant houses as you want, but the village of Chesapeake cannot reach its full potential until steps are taken to eradicate the drug problem once and for all.

Thank you and God bless.

 

Caitlin Smith
Ironton