Three out of four farmers and farmworkers say they have been affected directly by opioid abuse, according to a survey commissioned by the two largest U.S. farm groups. The American Farm Bureau and the National Farmers Union said the survey, conducted by Morning Consult, was the first step in collaboration between the two groups on the issue.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, the counties with the highest prescription rates for opioid painkillers are predominantly rural counties with overwhelmingly white populations who are in poor health and have low incomes. Prescription painkillers were implicated in half of the country’s opioid-related overdose deaths in 2015, said the Los Angeles Times. Prescription rates are closely related to addiction and overdoses, said the CDC.
In the farm-group survey, three out of four farmers said it would be easy for someone in their community to access opioids illegally, compared to half of rural adults overall who held that view. “We’ve known for some time that opioid addiction was a serious problem in farm country, but numbers like these are heartbreaking,” said Farm Bureau president Zippy Duvall. The NFU’s president, Roger Johnson, said opioid abuse was an “unrelenting and deadly crisis that is gripping farm families across the country. Farm and rural communities currently face major challenges in the fight against addiction, like access to services, treatment, and support.”
According to the survey, rural Americans believe opioid abuse is more of an urban problem than a rural issue. One-third of rural adults said it would be easy to get treatment for addiction to prescription drugs, but only 38 percent said they believe treatment would be effective, convenient, affordable, or covered by insurance.