Feb 9, 2016 3 min read

Barely a week passes when this newspaper is not filled with headlines about heroin and the death grip it has on all too many lives. Just last week, we reported on a spate of nonfatal overdoses in Washington County, and more in other parts of Southwestern Pennsylvania, caused by a batch of heroin laced with the pain reliever Fentanyl. The same tale is being told in all too many other communities in other states.

You could be forgiven for starting to grow numb to the continuing havoc wrought by heroin, believing that there’s really nothing to be done about it and the best we can do is hope that, like a hurricane, it gradually loses its punch and heads out to sea.

But that may be too pessimistic a prognosis. Problems that once looked to be intractable, both here and across the country, have been effectively tamed. Once seeming to be of Everest proportions, they are now more along the lines of, say, Mount Washington that looms over Pittsburgh’s South Side.

For an example, consider teen pregnancy.

Not too long ago, teen pregnancy was a nagging problem that seemed to defy any kind of simple solution. More often than not occuring outside the bounds of marriage or a committed relationship, teen pregnancy forecloses career and educational opportunities for young women thrust into motherhood before they have the emotional maturity for its demands. Though there are exceptions, teen pregnancy frequently puts young mothers and their children on a path to a life just barely scraping by. And this costs us all – according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. taxpayers paid more than $9 billion in 2010 as a result of teen pregnancy, thanks to additional spending for foster care and health care, unrealized tax revenue due to the lower educational attainment and employment prospects of teen mothers, and increased incarceration rates of those born to teenage mothers.

But here’s the good news: In recent years, teen pregnancy rates have been steadily tumbling. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services reported last year that the number of children born to women aged 15 to 19 fell by 45 percent since 2000. Limiting the range to women between the ages of 15 to 17, the numbers are even better – down by 54 percent.

“The historic decline in teen pregnancy and childbearing …(is) one of the nation’s great success stories of the past two decades,” Bill Albert of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy told Newsweek. “I call this the greatest story never told.”

The reasons for this drop? Sex education programs, many with federal backing, that highlight the importance of contraceptive use, and even MTV reality series like “Teen Mom” and “16 and Pregnant.” Closer to home, educators like Mary Jo Podgurski, who is also a columnist for the Observer-Reporter, and the Washington Hospital Teen Outreach program that she founded and leads, have been playing a critical role in reducing rates of teenage pregnancy locally and making teens realize that putting off sex – or at least being careful if they do engage in intercourse – can be good for them both in the near term and the long run.

Perhaps with the same kind of patient education and relentless focus on its devastating consequences, we can also bring heroin to heel.