Residents of Pennsylvania’s 50th Legislative District participated in Rep. Pam Snyder’s Tele-Town Hall, Thursday, Feb. 8.

This year marked Snyder’s third phone conference style town hall since she took office as a state representative.

Participants of the event would receive a phone call and be transitioned into the conference. Additionally, those involved were able to participate in polls and ask about “hot button issues.”

One of those heavily discussed issues was the opioid epidemic that has plagued Greene County, along with much of the country.

“I wish we could say it was limited to one county, but it’s not. You know, this is something that is not just across the state but across this country,” said Snyder. “I sit on the Fayette County and the Greene County opioid task force. You know, we’ve lost so many young people to this terrible disease, I just can’t even stand the thought of it when I look at the papers and the obituaries in the paper every day and you see another young person is gone.”

Snyder discussed the way she, along with many other government entities, are working to find ways to control, fight and end the epidemic.

One way they are striving to do this is in the recent passing of a prescription drug-monitoring program in the House.

Snyder believes that the program is going to “help immensely” because doctors and pharmacists will be better able to monitor when and how often patients get opioid prescriptions filled. The goal is to help pinpoint if a person may have a problem with addiction.

Snyder also believes that Pennsylvania passing medical marijuana “will cut down on opioid use dramatically,” because there are a large number of people who suffer from various diseases and pain.

“I think if a doctor can prescribe the medical marijuana…instead of an opioid,” said Snyder. “That’s going to have a huge impact on cutting down on the opioid use. And if we cut down on opioids, we’re going to cut down on heroin.”

The epidemic didn’t happen overnight, and Snyder doesn’t expect to fix it overnight either.

“We all have to be responsible here and do everything that we can as a community to be able to do what we need,” said Snyder. “Talk to your kids, talk to your grandkids, you know, we need to encourage our kids, whether it’s about drug use or whether it’s about what happened a couple [of] weeks ago in Fayette County when some kids went home and told their parents that they overheard another student say that he was going to hurt people at school and they stopped that from happening.”

Snyder also said that children need to be encouraged to talk to their parents or an adult when they hear something that seems dangerous.

“It’s not being a tattle-tell, it’s being responsible,” said Snyder.

Snyder has seen a lot of interest when it comes hosting events like the Tele-Town hall.

“I think for a lot of people it’s just about being able to sit at home on your couch and listen to the call, even if you don’t participate,” said Snyder, “I ran into a woman [Friday] morning and she told me ‘I listened to your entire town hall, it was so interesting to listen to and everything’ she said, ‘I didn’t have any questions, but I listened in.’ I think it’s a much more, much easier way to reach a larger amount of people.”

Because the town hall’s topics are driven by the questions that people have and the issues they face, Snyder heard about a wider range of issues and concerns from people within her legislative district—problems that concern the citizens themselves.

The district is made up of parts of Fayette and Washington counties along with all of Greene County.

“It’s really good for me to hear what’s on people’s minds – and it’s not just about that hour that we’re interacting during the town hall,” said Snyder. “It’s about all of the messages that were left after the town hall so, [the next day] we came in here and we have a whole list of voicemails that were left after the call was done and we’re going through those now and reaching out to those folks and see what concerns and issues they have.”