Substance Use (Excluding Tobacco and Alcohol)

Why it matters: Drug use causes the highest number of years of potential life lost of any single-cause in La Crosse County every year. It results in many hospitalizations, and costs our community millions of dollars in lost productivity, hospitalization charges, policing charges, property damage, identity theft, and more. Addiction is a disease that requires treatment in the same way that cancer does. The difference is that those struggling with cancer often find support whereas many with addiction do not. Our community will benefit greatly (both in terms of health outcomes as well as economics) from improved support for addiction recovery.

How we're doing: La Crosse County's average number of opiate prescriptions per 100 people is 30% higher than the state average. The opioid treatment rate of the state is more than 48 times higher than La Crosse. Finally, the opioid-related mortality rate has quadrupled over the last 6 years. Combined, this data suggests that we are prescribing opiates too much and treating opioid addiction too little, which may be part of the reason that the opioid-related mortality rate has been rising so much. In combination with data points around adolescent exposure to drugs (for example, 10% of adolescents in La Crosse have misused over-the-counter or prescription pain medication), the data on substance use disorder suggests that a concentrated effort around reducing stigma, reducing opioid use, improving access to treatment, and intervening earlier may have significant positive effects not only on survival, but also on quality of life and the economy.