Last week, it was announced that the Lawrence County Health Department had received a $17,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Health, Health Improvement and Wellness Office, Violence and Injury Prevention Program.

The fund, which will be used to help forge a coalition of officials and residents across the county to work together to reduce overdose deaths, came about as the result of an application filed by Angela Bostick-Doyle MSN, RN.

It will also help fund the development of a community plan for the crisis and help to assemble a drug overdose fatality review board, which would meet annually  and  review overdoses and fatalities related to opioid abuse.

Tackling the overdose crisis will be a community effort, from work by law enforcement to arrest those who deal the drugs to work by treatment groups.

This local effort is taking place while federal officials, such as U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown work on the national level.

Brown’s INTERDICT Act, which is aimed as helping customs and borders officials detect and stop the import of illegal fentanyl, was passed Congress and was signed into law by President Donald Trump earlier this year.

And earlier this week, Trump unveiled plans by the White House to take on the crisis.

While he received some criticism for the lack of specifics, lawmakers of both parties have signaled a willingness to join the president in taking action.

We commend Bostick-Doyle for helping to secure this grant for the county and hope that these funds will be an important part of the local effort against this epidemic that has gone for far too long and claimed too many lives.