HUNTINGTON — U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said Friday she believes Huntington should serve as a model for other cities in America fighting the drug epidemic.
"We are going to lose an entire generation here if we don't model this across the country," Capito said.
The freshman senator met with 11 Huntington leaders in the fight against the drug epidemic at Huntington City Hall for a roundtable discussion about the innovative ideas the city has implemented in order to curb the ever-rising drug problem.
In 2015, there were 944 overdoses in Cabell County, with 70 resulting in death. More than half of the overdoses occurred within Huntington city limits. The city averaged an overdose death once every six days and seven hours.
Capito said she wanted to come to Huntington because its people were looking at a spectrum of solutions.
"Huntington is way ahead of trying to face a very difficult problem," Capito said. "But it takes a lot of resources."
Capito heard from members of all aspects of the drug fight, from law enforcement to recovery programs to the faith community.
One of the issues Capito was interested in learning about was providing naloxone, an overdose reversing drug also known as Narcan, over the counter. She said she is working on a bill with U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in regards to naloxone availability.
Dr. Kevin Yingling, dean of the Marshall University School of Pharmacy, said he strongly supported making naloxone available without a prescription from a physician. Instead, Yingling suggested, the drug should be a schedule 5 classification, like Sudafed.
"This is an important tool," he said.
Capito also learned what else can be done for some of the epidemic's tiniest sufferers. In its first year of operations, Rebecca Crowder, director of Lily's Place, a center that cares for drug-addicted babies, said they have already noticed two major areas of concern.
One, some neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) babies are going undetected because hospitals don't have prenatal drug testing. This means babies are sent home, only to begin withdrawing 48 hours after they were born.
The second area of concern is babies leaving Lily's Place with mothers who don't have a good handle on their own addictions. Crowder said Lily's Place is looking into opening a recovery center for their mothers and would like to make an entire campus of healing.
"We want to be able to provide that total wrap-around services and we are grateful for the support we are getting from the city on that," Crowder said. "We hope to make that happen very soon."
Capito also heard about the partnerships and support throughout all the agencies in Huntington that make the efforts stronger.
For example, Pastor Ford Prince of Central United Methodist Church said his church was working with Lifehouse Ministries, a sober-living community, to open a recovery center for women. And he told Dr. Michael Kilkenny and Tim Hazelett, with the Cabell-Huntington Health Department, his church would be willing to open their doors for a satellite syringe exchange.
"I feel like more and more people in the faith community are asking 'What can we do?'" Prince said. "That's what we need to do, is partner more and find ways that we can help."
Another example is the way the Huntington Police Department, the Cabell County court system, the Cabell County Prosecutor's Office and the city worked together to begin a new drug court program targeting drug-addicted prostitutes.
Capito said she has not seen another community work together like Huntington has.
"I haven't seen communities that have such a comprehensive (plan) and really have no dissension," she said. "I think it's really setting it to a high priority like it should be."
Huntington Mayor Steve Williams said he never has any doubt Capito will do what she can to help.
"The senator has always been an advocate for us, and she has proven it time and time again," Williams said. "What I'm asking the senator help us do is communicate this around the state - and really it needs to be communicated to her colleagues across the nation - is the way that we break this is in the streets, where people really come together and stand together."
Capito said that even in Washington, this is not a partisan issue and she is positioned to help in any way that she can.
Discussion participants: