ANGELICA — Taking a break from the livestock and funnel cake, officials hoped to use one of the Allegany County Fair’s busiest venues to bring focus to the health-care crisis of heroin and opioid addiction.
Partners for Prevention in Allegany County (PPAC), along with the county board’s ad hoc committee on heroin and opioid addiction, hosted a town hall meeting Thursday afternoon at the Mini Theater to help detail where local officials plan to take the fight against substance abuse.
With rising numbers of users of opioids and heroin — including a PPAC survey of the county’s middle and high school students showing about 4 percent admit to having used opioids or heroin — and increases in the number of reported overdoses and deaths, a collection of law enforcement officers, substance abuse treatment and education officials, and the mother of a recovering addict spoke to the assembled crowd about the effects of addiction and changes in laws regarding opioid prescriptions, the reporting of overdoses to police and possible changes in rules involving overdose-halting agents.
Officials also touched on underage drinking, which the PPAC survey shows is the drug of choice for the area’s teens.
Legislator Judy Hopkins, R-Fillmore, who heads the ad hoc committee, said the committee was founded after constituents began asking legislators what they planned to do to fight the heroin epidemic, “And we didn’t have a good answer.”
“Our next-door neighbors have (heroin addictions). Our friends have it,” Hopkins said, adding while heroin is often seen as a big-city issue, “It’s a problem right here in Allegany County … People tend to deny that there’s a problem in their families.”
While hoping to educate the public, county officials are looking at ways to get aid for more treatment into the region, while working with groups like PPAC and a similar panel in Cattaraugus County, Hopkins said.
“The governor has released many resources — millions and millions of dollars — that are supposed to come back to the counties,” she said, but there is much work to be done, including checking in with agencies around the region to see what is already in place. “Where are the gaps? Where are the duplications? What are we doing right and what are we doing wrong?”
There are some legislative efforts county officials could pursue, such as a social host law — which would penalize adults who hosts minors at parties where drugs and alcohol are consumed — but there is much work to be done.
Joanie Coleman, who said her son is recovering from heroin addiction, shared what it is like to see addiction firsthand.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t know much about drugs … until a family member was arrested,” she said, adding she can see why many get hooked on heroin. “It’s cheap and it makes them feel good. Sometimes life is really hard, and it makes them feel good.”
State Police Lt. Greg Peron explained the Good Samaritan Law, which forbids police from making drug possession arrests during medical emergencies as a positive way to encourage those who witness an overdose to call for medical help before the victim succumbs.
“Too often, people were dying because they were afraid to call,” Peron said,
While the law allows those reporting and those suffering from an overdose to be free of drug possession charges, Peron noted police can still file charges of drug sales and select other crimes at the scene of an overdose.
Dr. Robert Anderson, director of Allegany County Community Services, lauded the state’s move to limit most new prescriptions for opioids from 30 days to a week. While going to the pharmacist more often could be difficult for some patients in real need, Anderson said “the safety issues kind of outweigh that,” noting the law exempts chronic pain patients and requires that four seven-day prescriptions cannot cost more than one 30-day prescription.
Peron said the biggest change needs to come from the community, however.
“If you tolerate it, you’re allowing it,” he said. “When we as a community see something and we tolerate it, that means we make it OK.”
Fillmore Central School Superintendent Ravo Root said adults need to step up and help youths because negative outlooks can form at early ages and those can hurt a child’s future.
Despite pushes in schools for character development and more activities, “We still have kids that develop these negative outlooks because of these toxic environments,” he said. But, “I’ve seen it where one person has made a positive impression, and it’s been enough.”
Ann Weaver, an educator with the Allegany Council on Alcohol and Substance Abuse, said much like heroin, underage drinking can be devastating on children, whose brains are not yet fully developed.
“When I was growing up, (binge drinking) was called a rite of passage,” she said, noting one in four county teens reported binge drinking. “We need to get rid of that.”
Cuba Police Chief Dustin Burch, who led the discussion, said anyone who has tips to report on underage drinking may call anonymously to (800) 851-1932.
(Contact reporter-editor Bob Clark at bclark@oleantimesherald.com. Follow him on Twitter, @OTHBob)
