Greenfield’s opioid crisis response gets national attention

The holistic approach to the opioid abuse epidemic taken in Greenfield by city and county officials has been lauded in an April 18 article on the news website Ozy.
 
“Can This Small Town Lead America in Fighting the Opioid Crisis?” suggested that the work done by the Opioid Task Force of Franklin County and the North Quabbin Region could provide a blueprint for other communities.
 
In addition to typical interventions, such as increasing public education and improving access to the overdose-reversing medication naloxone, the Task Force helped launch a 64-bed treatment center near Greenfield’s downtown and created reforms at the Franklin County Jail that the article said make it “the vanguard of U.S. correctional facilities.”
 
The jail reforms include providing medication-assisted treatment to qualifying inmates suffering from addiction, and using dialectical behavior therapy.
 
The Task Force is also working to stimulate Greenfield’s economy – once dependent on manufacturing – to provide living-wage jobs to residents.
 
The article is available at www.ozy.com/fast-forward/can-this-small-town-lead-america-in-fighting-the-opioid-crisis/85534.