Note that most of the people who criticise the Utah church's attitude to opioid addiction in this article in the UK Guardian newspaper are Mormons ...
'It's beyond pain': how Mormons are left vulnerable in Utah's opiate crisis
One person dies each day in the state from a prescription drug overdose, a 400% increase since 2000, according to the Utah health department. The toll rises by half again when deaths from heroin are included. The US attorney in Salt Lake City, John Huber, last month warned of “an insatiable appetite in Utah for pain pills and for heroin”.
Many of the recorded deaths are of people who became hooked on prescriptions for sports or work injuries, or to cope with chronic conditions such as back pain. But there has also been widespread use among Mormons who some LDS church members say fall back on opioid painkillers as a crutch to cope with pressure to live a devout life.
“We have a catastrophe now in Utah with opiate overdoses,” said Dan Snarr, a member of the high priest group leadership within the LDS church whose son, Denver, died of a prescription drug overdose at the age of 25 after becoming hooked on painkillers following a rugby injury.
“The LDS church is a big part of it. I go to church every week and I see where the challenge is. They make people feel that they should be perfect and they feel inferior, like they can’t live up to the standards of what they expect them to live up to. So they start using prescription painkillers not to address pain, physical pain, but the mental issues that go along with feeling inferior. That you just cannot cope with all the things you’re expected to be and to do.”
Snarr, who is also a former mayor of the small town of Murray in Salt Lake County, said he realised the scale of the problem when other Mormons came to him after Denver’s death to speak about their own families and addiction. “A lot of people recognise that it’s beyond anything to do with pain. It alleviates the stress and pain of this life and the challenges that you face,” he said.
Snarr has spoken openly in his church about the crisis, to the frustration of some LDS leaders who, he said, prefer to keep hidden what they regard as moral failings.
Vincent, who works as a counsellor at a treatment centre, First Step House, said her sister was initially prescribed opioids for pancreatitis and migraines. The drug swiftly became a mental and emotional dependency that Hairup regarded as legitimate because it was prescribed by doctors and did not conflict with her religion.
“I think my sister found the medication helped with the physical pain but it also eased emotional pain,” said Vincent. “In Utah we have a phenomenon known as toxic perfectionism. There’s a belief amongst members of the LDS church that you need to be perfect. It’s keeping up with the Joneses times 10.”
Vincent said that the more her sister became dependent, the more the doctors increased the doses. “Doctors prescribed Maline lots of pain medications in conjunction with Valium and antidepressants. She really believed that he was taking it for a good medical reason,” she said.
In recent years both Vincent’s ageing father, who she describes as “a super active member of the LDS church”, and her brother, Stan Hairup, were prescribed opioid painkillers too – her father to deal with multiple surgeries and Stan to cope with a basketball injury.
“Before you knew it, my brother, my dad and my sister were all sharing pills. They look at that like that’s normal and OK because it was prescribed but the prescriptions weren’t for each other,” she said.
Carol Moss, a Mormon and Democratic state legislator, also said religion is a factor in the spread of opioid addiction. “What’s unique about Utah is that the LDS church forbids alcohol and tobacco. People around the world have a drink to relax or drink socially,” she said. “When those things are not part of the cultural acceptance for people, they look for an acceptable palliative for aches and pains and depression and that’s become pills.”
And so on ...