DeKalb County Commissioner Larry Johnson, in partnership with Aetna, and National Association of Counties, The Fulton DeKalb Hospital Authority, and Morehouse School of Medicine, will host an Opioid Symposium on Thursday, May 4, 2017.

The event will be held at Porter Sanford III Performing Arts & Community Center, 3181 Rainbow Dr.,Decatur. Registration will start at 8:30 a. m. and the program begins at 9 a.m. Registration is open online at http://bit.do/stop-opioids.

The symposium will bring together policymakers, healthcare professionals and other stakeholders to discuss challenges faced and strategies on how to approach the opioid epidemic.

Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week is an initiative by Former President Barack Obama, who is urging Congress to allocate $1.1 billion for treatment to counteract this epidemic.

According to a "Politics of Pain: A Decade of Opioid Lobbying," joint investigation by the Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity: 

• In 2015, approximately 227 million opioid prescriptions were issued in the U.S. while opioid sales were $9.6 billion.
  
  
• Approximately 356,000 Americans died due to drug overdoses between 2006 and 2014. Most of these were connected to prescription painkillers and heroin.