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Prescription for disaster

Pharos-Tribune - 2/10/2018

Feb. 10--As local unemployment remains low and addictions to opiates increase, Cass County may be between a rock and a hard place when it comes to growing local industry.

An Indiana Business Review analysis of statewide statistics recently examined the economic impact of opioid misuse, finding that the opioid epidemic may be costing Indiana an estimated $1.5 billion per year in lost economic productivity.

That's because people who abuse opiates are far more likely than the average person to be unemployed or die from drug overdoses, putting stress on an already tight labor supply.

Addiction often results in increased unemployment and crime. But following the doctor's orders doesn't necessarily keep a patient from becoming addicted. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports on its website that long-term use of opioid pain relievers, such as for chronic pain, can be associated with abuse and overdose. As prescriptions for opioid painkillers increased nationwide, so too have deaths from overdoses on prescription painkillers, the CDC reported.

Makers of prescription painkillers have faced widespread criticism as having contributed to the crisis, and the city of Logansport has voted to join litigation against opioid makers over the issue. Local medical facilities have also taken steps to reduce their patients' dependence on opioid pain relievers -- over a year ago, Logansport Memorial Hospital brought in a chronic pain specialist who doesn't even prescribe opiates.

Still, addiction to opioid painkillers and their illicit cousin, heroin, has found local first responders taking care of more overdose victims recently. Cass County Coroner Randy Rozzi reported earlier this year that he recorded 10 overdose deaths due to opioids or meth in 2017, and that number would have been "much higher" without naloxone, the lifesaving opioid overdose antidote that first responders carry.

At the same time, the local unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest levels in nearly two decades. Indiana's residents and those in Cass County are getting older, state statistics indicate, and as they enter retirement, fewer and fewer people remain available to fill open job positions, the Indiana Business Review article argued.

Bill Cuppy, director of the Cass-Logansport Economic Development Organization, said local employers haven't mentioned opiates being a particular problem for them -- just that those who drug-screen job applicants sometimes see applicants fail the screening. Lack of soft skills is the biggest problem he's heard about, he said.

But Indiana University associate professor Ryan M. Brewer believes that less than 60 percent of people abusing opioids are employed. The rest, he estimated, are unemployed or not counted in the labor force at all.

Writing in the Indiana Business Review, Brewer argued the opioid epidemic kept some 9,000 Indiana residents out of work and another 4,500 entirely uncounted as part of the workforce. All told, their work would likely have contributed about $1.5 billion to Indiana's economic output, which Brewer likened to having three massive factories missing from the Hoosier landscape.

"Perhaps of most concern," Brewer wrote, " the opiate usage rates have been trending upward." He cited CDC statistics, adding that it represents "an additional threat" to anywhere that's "experiencing conditions at or near full employment."

Generally, full employment is defined as the point where employers have to compete by offering higher wages in order to fill open positions, triggering inflation. When that happens depends who you ask, but many economists believe areas with an unemployment rate of 4 to 5 percent are at full employment. In December 2017, the most recent data available, Cass County's unemployment rate was below that, at 3.4 percent.

Of course, opioid addiction isn't the only challenge facing Cass County.

Officials previously have noted the comparatively low skill level of the area's workforce hurts job creation, and efforts are underway to connect local residents with job-training resources and make sure high schoolers have opportunities to graduate with employable skills. And the biggest complained Cuppy has heard, he said, has been new hires getting fired days later for something as simple as not showing up.

He believes opioids are a problem "both locally and everywhere else," but it's hard to measure that, he said.

What he knows local employers are concerned about is attendance. "They'll hire somebody, they'll go through training, and a week into it they'll have to dismiss them, terminate them, due to tardiness or lack of professionalism."

While Cuppy thinks that is somewhat correlated with opioid addiction -- "it's like any addiction, that would take your attention elsewhere" -- employers he's spoken with haven't said the two are specifically related.

Reach Sarah Einselen at sarah.einselen@pharostribune.com

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