Our Mission
The Mission of the Coalition for Heroin and Opioid Prevention is to bring the deadly problem of heroin and opioid addiction to the attention of our community, and to plan and coordinate an organized response to this serious problem. This response will include:
Alerting and educating the community on the nature and extent of the substance use problem and its effect on health and welfare.
Researching best practice recommendations for medical prescribers to limit use of opioids for pain when possible.
Educating the community about the importance of properly disposing all unused medications.
Identifying areas of need and targeting community organizations and services.
"When I took over in this position, I really knew that St. Louis had an epidemic going on. I wanted to do something here to start educating people and to try to combat the situation before we became an epidemic city as well. Because, generally speaking, anything that trends in St. Louis usually takes about two years to filter down to us. I knew we were on a limited time frame. A major improvement has been the introduction of prescription drug monitoring systems which allows doctors to better detect when a patient might be abusing drugs."
— Jeri Cain, Dare Police Officer