I want to thank the Homer News and reporter Anna Frost for your thorough and thoughtful coverage of our community’s issues with opioid abuse. Your coverage  has started the very type of community conversation that must take place if we want to affect change. Your coverage in turn has inspired courageous disclosures from our friends and neighbors such as Megan Anderson and the Wiard family, stories that moved many of us to tears and greater determination to continue working on the problem. 

I hope as a community we honor the courage of the persons who have come forward with their stories, and that we take their lessons to heart. On Tuesday, May 24, there will be a free public presentation about Drugs and Teen Brain Development from 7-9 p.m. at the Bidarka Best Western Conference Room, by Dr. Michael Spigarelli, a professor of pediatrics and pharmacology at the University of Utah. Please come learn about the science of how different drugs interact with the teenage brain, so we can develop and implement better prevention strategies for our community. 

Ginny Espenshade