HOPE Family Drug Summit to be held Jan. 15 at UC for those impacted by substance use disorder

A sign for the University of Charleston in front of its campus on MacCorkle Avenue in Charleston, W.Va., on Aug. 12, 2020. (Getty Images)

Families of those affected by the ongoing drug and overdose epidemic are invited on Jan. 15 to attend a summit at the University of Charleston meant to strengthen partnerships and provide resources while giving “hope” to those in similar situations.

The HOPE — Healing, Opportunities and Possibilities to Empower — Family Drug Summit will be the first event of its kind. It’s being put on by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of West Virginia, under the leadership of U.S. Attorney Will Thompson. 

Families and individuals who would like to participate in the free summit are encouraged to register online.

Thompson has served as a U.S. attorney since 2021, having been appointed to the office by President Joe Biden. He came to the federal role after working for nearly 15 years as a circuit court judge in Boone County. Now, with President-elect Donald Trump set to take office later this month, Thompson is preparing to leave this role as it’s likely Trump will appoint someone more conservatively aligned to take the position.

“I’ve told people that U.S. attorneys are not necessarily judged by what they do. They’re judged by the legacy they leave,” Thompson said. “I’m comfortable with the legacy I will leave, because this isn’t a permanent position. You don’t stay in it forever. And I’ve been able to bring good people in and take the office in good directions.”

The HOPE Family Drug Summit, for Thompson, is a way to celebrate that legacy and, hopefully, inspire hope for some who need it. 

Under his leadership, the Southern District of West Virginia has seen shifts in priorities, he said.

There’s been more of an effort to target prosecution toward higher-level drug dealers and traffickers instead of street-level offenders who are often victims as well. There’s been more focus on tracking the use and sale of deadlier drugs, like fentanyl and meth, instead of marijuana. And overall, Thompson said, he’s encouraged those that work for him and with him to center recovery and empathy in their work instead of just punitive measures.

These shifts, Thompson said, reflect many of the lessons he’s learned through his years working in West Virginia’s legal system, often in the areas hardest hit by the drug and overdose epidemic.

“One of the number one problems I’ve dealt with in my career is the problem caused by the drug epidemic,” Thompson said. “I’ve devoted a lot of my professional life to trying to address that and I do think we’ve made progress on it here in [the U.S. Attorney’s Office] by promoting a wider solution, casting a wider net, changing some strategies in our prosecution.”

During his tenure in Boone, he oversaw the region’s first adult drug court program in 2008. Later, in 2019, he was instrumental in advocating for and initiating a pilot program for family treatment courts. That pilot program — created through the passage of House Bill 3057 in the 2019 legislative Session — saw the treatment courts start in just three counties (Boone, Randolph and Ohio). As of November 2023, they were available to residents in 16 counties, where they’ve proven crucial to helping reunite families affected by substance use disorder.

Thompson knows how critical people can be of law enforcement and the judicial system — including his own office — when it comes to participating in recovery efforts. He said he understands, but wants people to see that there is a role for those systems in the entire continuum of care. They can provide oversight for bad actors who take advantage of vulnerable people through things like patient brokering and Medicaid Fraud. 

“We have proven that we cannot arrest our way out of this problem. We’ve been trying that since about 1973 and it’s not getting any better,” Thompson said. “But this is the reality — law enforcement needs to be involved as sort of a checks and balances to make sure people are doing this for the right reason.”

For families and individuals with substance use disorder, Thompson said he wants to see the HOPE Family Drug Summit be a venue where they can share success stories — like those made possible through treatment courts — with others who are at different stages of recovery and offer education to others.

“People shouldn’t have to be engaged with the criminal justice system in order to get the help that they need,” Thompson said. “We can make our communities a safer and better place if we get these people help sooner, quicker and more effectively. The first person that generally will realize that someone in their family is suffering from addiction is a family member, so the more information we can give them to identify that, to know where to go if they see it, the better.”

Overall, Thompson said he believes there’s been a positive shift over the last few years in how the general public perceives substance use disorder. There will always be “naysayers,” he said, but at most levels he believes people are willing to see substance use disorder today as the disease it is instead of a moral failure.

“Unfortunately, it’s become such a prevalent problem. … If you don’t think addiction has hurt your family, you just don’t know your family very well, because it has affected every family in West Virginia, and because of that, I think more people are willing to embrace some of these programs,” Thompson said. “They realize that people do come back from this. They’ve seen the shining stars … People do recover from this, and that’s a wonderful thing. So I do think, as a state, that we are recognizing the problem better and realizing that there are multiple solutions to it.”