In the Riverfront Bar & Grill of Marietta Ohio’s century-old Lafayette Hotel on a recent steamy night, the chatter intensified with an air of excitement. Friends were calling friends to get updates on the Queen of the Mississippi, a giant paddle wheel boat that was expected to slide alongside the hotel any minute, right outside the window.

It was awkward for me, a 47-year journalist, captured by the excitement of a luxury river cruise ship, while typing notes from a conversation a few hours earlier, downriver in Belpre, population 6,500.

The conversation? About 40 people had gathered to talk about the opioid crisis killing 5,000 a year in Ohio and West Virginia. There were tears as mothers related stories of children. Belpre, clearly, had not escaped the scourge. Nor had Parkersburg, W.Va., where we had been the night before, and Marietta, where we would hold a community meeting the following night.

There already had been 11 of these meetings across Ohio as part of the Your Voice Ohio project, a collaborative of more than 40 news outlets trying to gain a better understanding of the people we serve. At the invitation of the What’s Next Mid-Ohio Valley organization and local media, Your Voice Ohio bridged the Ohio River for this one weekend.

There were many consistencies in the Mid-Ohio Valley – or MOV as the people of Parkersburg-Marietta call themselves. Like all of Ohio, they agreed that there are families and children in crisis; a need for complex, extensive treatment, early preventative education and a need to change the stigma of addiction; and treatment instead of arrest.

But MOV meetings offered something not heard as clearly across the rest of Ohio: A convincing belief that they had been exploited.

“Is this a valid finding?” was the question posed to Aaron Payne, a reporter for WOUB at Ohio University. He covers issues in the valley for a National Public Radio collaborative that stretches the length of the Ohio River. Yes, he said, when you consider the history of the coal industry, which extracted wealth from the valley then left communities without jobs. The same question was asked of a group of local retired professors, public officials, engineers and business owners at the Lafayette Hotel breakfast room the next morning. They looked at the foolish old journalist, nodded yes, then moved on to Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin, which was occurring as they sipped coffee.

The 150 folks who gathered over three days put exploitation and the drug crisis in perspective. The pharmaceutical industry and medical community offered a pill to ease the pain of a spiritual hole caused by plummeting income, no jobs and nowhere to go.

And, people said in every meeting, no one is immune to the destruction of lives evolving  from the high-powered opioids.

One retiree came to the Belpre session and confessed before the start that she knew nothing about the crisis and came because she was curious. As she moved from table to table, she offered several “Oh-my” responses. “This is really complicated, and solutions won’t be easy,” she said at the end.

She moved from a thought at the beginning – “Maybe if people would just go to church” – to a laundry list of actions.

The MOV meetings illustrated the vast disconnect between people in the heartland and their state governments in Charleston and Columbus and policy makers in Washington.

The same week we met in the Ohio Valley, the White House announced an initiative to obtain pledges from employers to hire people.

The reality, said one of the men at the Lafayette hotel, is that there are “Help wanted” signs all along the road from the northeast corner of Ohio to the Ohio River. But those jobs are unfilled, said the people in the meetings, because people in recovery often accumulated a record of felony arrests so they could buy drugs. Even though they’re clean, they can’t get hired.

So while politicians win pledges for jobs and job training, there is little benefit to the thousands of people in recovery who can’t get hired and pull families back together because of a criminal record.

What else did we learn about disconnect? One person in recovery said addicts reach a point of despair that creates a rare moment for intervention. There needs to be a public hotline that gets them whisked to services.

People in the recovery business quickly said, “There IS a number,” and offered it up.

Right, said the man in recovery. “Did you ever try to call it?”

The caller receives a list of phone numbers and instructions, he said. This is a person headed into life-threatening withdrawal and desperate who must make calls searching for someone to admit him. It could take days.

Politicians and people in the recovery business say there’s a hotline – but does it work for people struggling with addiction?

A doctor encouraged a call for drug intervention that delays experimentation. He said the average age of first exposure in the Marietta area was about 13 or 14. Delaying experimentation just two years significantly reduces the chances of experimenting with drugs at all, he said.

But a high school student said that when there are mandatory school assemblies on drugs, everyone pulls out a cell phone and is otherwise occupied. The education, the student said, must be calculated. In other communities, we heard citizens say that education must start as early as kindergarten, and it must be education on coping skills to help children make good decisions in bad situations – not drug education.

As I dragged my suitcase past the display cases of weapons, paddle boats and ballcaps at the Lafayette, the coffee bunch was there for the thrice-weekly meeting. They were reflecting on the failures of government. Outside, another paddle wheel had come to shore, tourists were climbing the hill to tour historic Marietta and locals in lawn chairs were sitting under trees to watch the excitement. One local hinted that it was an escape from current politics.

Interesting place, this MOV. They’ve seen jobs disappear, incomes plunge and watched loved ones die. And they know they’ve been exploited.

What’s refreshing in the MOV is that after the last meeting, people spilled into the parking lot and lingered awhile. There were hugs, and on a note card, one person wrote: “I learned how much our community cares about each other and the future of our community. WE all can and are willing to fix this.”

Your Voice Ohio is supported by the Democracy Fund and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Local events were arranged and supported by What’s Next MOV, Sisters Health Foundation and Community Recovery Center. The ​Belpre Masonic Lodge and Boys and Girls Club of Parkersburg provided meeting space.

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More than 300 people were killed by drug overdoses in the Marietta-Parkersburg area in the last four years, contributing to a crisis ravaging the Ohio valley.

As journalists who try to bring you meaningful news that helps create better communities, we’re troubled that our reporting has not resulted in widespread public mobilization for solutions to the addiction crisis.

Consider: 3,300 have died in the U.S. in the last 20 years due to terrorist attacks, all but 400 in one event on September 11, 2001. But in Ohio and West Virginia alone, nearly 5,000 are dying each year of opioid overdoses – an addictive drug that most began using as a prescription from a doctor.

West Virginia and Ohio have the dubious distinction as No. 1 and No. 2 in the nation for death rates. There are indeed individuals and organizations delivering creative interventions, but still, the number of individuals and families in crisis staggers the imagination.

As journalists, we believe we have a responsibility to not just report the problem, but also be part of the solution. For that reason, journalists in the Marietta-Parkersburg area have agreed to set aside competitive instincts for the next several months and work together on helping the Mid-Ohio Valley identify and act on solutions to the crisis. Among those journalists are Janelle Patterson at the Marietta Times, Brett Dunlap at the Parkersburg News and Sentinel, Aaron Payne at WOSU/NPR.

This isn’t the first effort of its type. The Marietta-Parkersburg initiative will be part of the Your Voice Ohio project, a collaborative effort of nearly 40 radio, television, newspaper and online news organizations that seek to give voice to people in their communities. By better understanding the people, journalists are better equipped to hold leadership accountable.

“We are proud to partner with local reports and media organizations whom we respect to shed light on what has been done, what can be done, what is being done to address the opioid crisis,” said Sarah Arnold, Owner of Clutch MOV.

Your Voice Ohio has held 11 community conversations across Ohio since October, listening to more than 500 people discuss what they know about the addiction crisis, the causes and solutions.

Over the next few months, we’ll do the same in Washington and Wood counties. Journalists will  join citizens at the table to listen and participate. We want to come away with new ideas on how best to serve.

There’s an element to this project that will be noticeably different from much of what you have heard or read so far about addiction: Solutions. We want to reflect accurately that this is not a hopeless crisis. There are, in fact, survivors and there are people, institutions and governments saving lives.

Next week, we’ll provide a list of solutions that are statistically proven to reduce harm, many of which people in communities identified as things they want but for some reason leaders failed to provide.

This will be one of our contributions: A checklist of solutions that allows each community to ask, “Do we have this, do we need this and how do we get it?”

As for journalists, we’ve received an earful from communities like Parkersburg, Marietta and Belpre, where we will meet with citizens July 15-17. People told their news organizations that those struggling with addiction need help and they want respect. “No one wakes up in the morning thinking they want to be an addict” was heard more than once.

They asked for a crisis phone number, prominent on news web sites, that tells them who to call for help. Where can they find Narcan kits to revive someone who overdosed? Where can they find a detoxification center? Is there a local needle exchange to prevent spread of disease?

They asked us to rethink the word “addict” because it has become derogatory. Most news organizations use the word only if the person refers to himself as an “addict.” The word “addiction” sometimes is replaced by “substance use disorder.”

Reasons? Scientific understanding of opioids suggests that the drug causes a change in brain chemistry that results in a disorder. The word “disorder” is more accurate, and also changes the thinking about the people at risk.

And when one considers that most who die in Ohio and West Virginia had their first experience with an addictive opioid because it was prescribed by a doctor, the idea arises that they may be victims rather than making bad choices.

One of the Your Voice Ohio partners, WYSO public radio, aired a powerful interview from the Dayton Women’s Correctional Institution that illustrates how lives are transformed by opioids. Listen to  the conversation with Alisha Federici, who suffered a back injury in high school gymnastics. She was given pain medication and became hooked. She tried rehab three times, but the disorder ended in her death.

The public conversations sponsored by your local news organizations begin with the assumption that communities are best equipped to identify and act on effective solutions. People will be asked whether opioids or addiction have affected their lives and how. They’ll be asked how the area would look if it were successfully turning the crisis around and what must be done to do so.

Meetings are open to the public and diverse voices aid in identifying local solutions. Parents of victims, people in recovery, paramedics, doctors, teachers and public officials are encouraged to provide their perspective in free-flowing conversations.

Because of room limitations, those who wish to participate are asked to sign up through internet links provided with this story.

So now we ask: What questions do you need answered to help your understanding? What solutions do you suggest?

Email us at clutchmov@gmail.com or heroin@yourvoiceohio.org

At a glance

News outlets in the Mid-Ohio Valley are working with the Your Voice Ohio project to listen to local residents discuss the addiction crisis so that we can better represent your thoughts and solutions in our reporting.

At the sessions, residents will be asked to describe the addiction crisis in their community, what they think are the causes and what they think are solutions.

If you wish to participate, please sign up through one of the following links:

Parkersburg — 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. July 15, Boys and Girls Club of Parkersburg, 1200 Mary St., Parkersburg, WV 26101

Belpre — 6 to 8 p.m. July 16, Belpre Masonic Lodge #609, 1411 Putnam Howe Drive, Belpre, OH 45714

Marietta — 6 to 8 p.m. July 17, Washington County Fairgrounds clubhouse, 922 Front St., Marietta, Ohio 45750

The Your Voice Ohio media collaborative was funded in 2016 by a $175,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, an organization that supports journalistic endeavors. In 2017, the Democracy Fund, which supports media and public engagement in democracy, provided $250,000 to advance the work, and the Knight Foundation provided another $75,000. The Jefferson Center continues to devise the public conversations and acts as the fiscal agent for the project. Doug Oplinger, a 46-year veteran of the Akron Beacon Journal who worked on three Pulitzer projects, manages the media work. He can be emailed at doplinger@yourvoiceohio.org

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