RPI professor working to study the opioid crisis
TROY, N.Y. (WRGB) - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor Nancy Campbell studies the science and history of drugs and addiction. As the head of the Department of Science and Technology Studies she describes herself as a historian of science, medicine and technology. She is a published author many times over, as has seen one of those books on the Narcotic Farm converted into a documentary.
In short, Professor Campbell is an expert on addiction and the opioid crisis and an example of understanding our past, so we don't repeat its mistakes. In our year plus of doing Dose of Reality we found her to be one of the most knowledgeable people on the history of opioids and how that history fits into the context of today’s problem.
“I actually want my students to go out of the class, knowing more about where our current opioid epidemic came from, the endemic that it built upon and also knowing more about drug markets and the social aspects,” Campbell said.
She says New York City holds a unique place in history as a flash point for heroin and opioids. That means lawmakers in Albany have a place as some of the first policy setters. She says the Capital Region and entire state have been a testing and proving ground for treatment and new strategies.
“What should we as a government be doing? What should the state of New York be doing in terms of responding well to this kind of problem?”
Earlier this month we ran down the preliminary overdose death numbers from 2018, showing a slight drop. Professor Campbell echoed a caution we mentioned in that report.
“Overdose death statistics are notoriously inaccurate, they take a long time to reduce, there is a conversion problem where you don’t know until a long time later what you’re really looking at. The stigmatized nature of the condition meant that for decades coroners would not certify deaths as overdose deaths because they don’t want to embarrass the parents, the families,” Campbell said.
We’ve come a long way since those days, but there are still many stigmas to be broken.
