To find a person who has not in some way been impacted by the drug epidemic would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

The effects of drugs are so far reaching that if one person in a family becomes addicted, everyone else in the family is likely to suffer.

An Ohio mother is learning that lesson in one of the hardest ways possible after she was sentenced this week to five years in prison for the heroin-related death of her 14-month-old daughter.

Erica Maria Barley was charged involuntary manslaughter after her daughter, Annabella Sagstetter, died last year from ingesting fentanyl-laced heroin at what authorities say was a drug house in Columbus.

It truly could only be a deep addiction that would make a mother so desperate for drugs that she would put her child into a dangerous situation like that.

Certainly this young woman will live everyday with the decisions she made that landed her in prison and will have to live with the fact that those decisions killed her child.

State and national officials must also realize that the decisions they make, or don’t make, regarding the opioid epidemic are what will help curb drug usage or send it on its steady climb.

This week, Ohio lawmakers took another step in the right direction by forming a committee to study drug prevention education in schools. The committee will examine the status of drug use prevention education in Ohio schools and issue recommendations on options for implementing age-appropriate drug education in schools across all grade levels.

Prevention is key in reducing the number of drug users and enhancing drug education in schools is more important than ever. Teaching students to be strong and confident in saying no to drugs, as well as showing them what happens to people who don’t, can go along way in showing them they don’t have to follow the paths of so many whose lives are ruined because of drugs.