Philadelphia’s Deputy Commissioner for the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS), Roland Lamb shared with us his knowledge and studies of substance abuse in the city. Roland has worked in the field of alcohol and substance abuse treatment for more than 40 years, specializing in statistics on substance use. His powerpoint presentation included pages of statistics ranging from the rates of overdose victims through the years, the gender and race disparities in addiction, and even the users disbursed by zip code.

According to Roland, Philly has the most potent and least expensive opioids on the east coast. With the very high demand for opioids in the streets, “people aren’t traveling outside of their zip codes to get high and die.” Prescription opioids are just as dangerous as street opioids, with women being more likely to be prescribed them. As a result of their heavy use, we aren’t seeing women in treatment because they don’t consider themselves addicted, but just patients taking their prescribed medicine. Roland stated that out of the 48,000 women who died of prescription painkillers, only 30 of them went to the emergency room.

It is evident that society needs to address the stigma behind addiction, and the lack of resources provided to those in recovery. Only a tenth of the 40 million Americans with addiction receive treatment. Sharing the startling facts and statistics of addiction is just one step in shifting the culture.