Response to the following with APA references
The state that I live in, New Hampshire, has had a long history of struggles with opioids and other drugs of abuse. When looking at the country as a whole, the year 2018 marked the first decrease in deaths secondary to opioids by 4.1% (NIH, 2021). In New Hampshire, the rates have remained steady since about 2015 (CDC, 2020). Approximately 33% of overdose deaths in New Hampshire are attributed to opioid overdoses. In New Hampshire, the primary drug that is attributed to the incidence of overdose is Fentanyl (Meier et al., 2020). Fentanyl is dangerous because it takes a very small amount to induce and overdose, and often it is laced into other substances which leads to an unknowing overdose from the user of the substance. Opioids are obtained through either legal means and are misused by those who they are prescribed to, or by people who are able to obtain them through illegal means. Opioid abuse is also the result of, or the causative factor of many other negative disease processes such as chronic pain, self-harm, suicide, homelessness, hepatitis C and HIV (DHHS, 2016). There are several resources available to people in New Hampshire who are struggling with opioid use or addiction. The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Resources has two tools to help find services available in the state. The first is a locator of Treatments Centers. The second is resource that serves as an informative resource for people looking to obtain Narcan kits (DHHS, 2016). Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital in Lebanon, NH has access points to several available statewide resources (Dartmouth-Hitchcock, 2021). Because Dartmouth-Hitchcock is on the New Hampshire Vermont border, they spearhead efforts in both states to find resources related to drug and alcohol treatment options.
