Not in my backyard.

It’s a statement that draws lines around not only what is acceptable but also where. It’s the kind of thing you usually see surrounding something everyone acknowledges is necessary but that they would rather forget or ignore — and that’s hard to do when it is next door.

You see it with landfills. You see it with sewage treatment plants. You see it with prisons. No one wants to live without those services. They just want someone else to deal with them.

And that is what is happening with a possible drug treatment center in Derry Township.

On Thursday, Westmoreland County commissioners approved a resolution opposing the project — a rumored proposal to take a former elementary school in New Derry that has been closed since 2011 and turn it into a treatment facility. Angel’s Light Addiction Specialists of Uniontown declined comment but is said to be in negotiations to buy the property, now owned by oil and gas company Wicklow Logistics.

Westmoreland County had 118 overdose deaths in 2022. Allegheny County had 511. Both of those statistics are down from previous years — peaking in 2017 at 193 and 737, respectively — but experts agree that fewer deaths do not mean a downturn in the opioid addiction crisis. Rather, that decline is attributable to broader availability of rescue drug naloxone, which can counteract an overdose.

Finding available treatment is a hurdle to addressing the opioid epidemic. So is finding halfway house or transitional housing for those leaving treatment. Both are often opposed by people who fear having drug addiction in their areas.

“We know that there is a need for these facilities. We can see the need. We just don’t want it in the middle of a neighborhood with a school, day care, park and a baseball field within walking distance,” Derry resident Gib Stemmler said.

The problem is that drug addiction is a problem that crosses municipal lines. It’s as likely to happen in a ritzy development as it is in a quaint, old-fashioned neighborhood or a blighted, low-income block. Because of that, keeping the treatment away seems counterproductive.

“Not in my backyard” never solves problems. It only punts them away for someone else to handle. Rather than stating opposition to a program intended to help, the community and the commissioners might do better to think of what steps could address concerns.

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