Senate Task Force Hears from Rockland on Heroin Scourge
Gannett; Marcela Rojas, 5/28/2014
More than 12 people lost their lives to heroin overdoses in 2013 in Rockland County, said Rockland County Sheriff Louis Falco III.
And an average of 700 pounds of prescription drugs are brought in to sheriff’s and local police departments throughout the county every eight months through pill take-back programs, he said.
“It’s an epidemic here in Rockland County and surrounding counties in New York state,” Falco said. “We have to get to the parents and we have to make them aware. Don’t think it can’t happen to you.”
Falco spoke at a hearing held Tuesday by Sen. David Carlucci, vice chairman of the Senate Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction who represents the towns of Ramapo, Clarkstown and Orangetown in Rockland and the town of Ossining in Westchester.
The forum, one of 18 being held throughout the state to gather information and create legislation to combat the scourge of opioid abuse, drew some 50 people who heard from 11 panelists on the issue. The task force held a hearing April 24 in Putnam; this is its last in the three-county area.
Among those panelists was Michael Zall, a Suffern lawyer whose son, Jeremy, died last year of a prescription drug overdose. Zall said his family suffered close to 20 years with Jeremy’s addiction and that more needs to be done to erase the stigma of dependency.
“Addiction needs to come out of the closet,” Zall said. “We now need an addiction logo … to tell people we are affected by addiction.”
Another parent, Lisa Wickens, spoke of the tremendous struggles with getting treatment for her son. She tried to get him into an inpatient facility and was denied by her insurance company because he needed to “fail” in outpatient treatment, she said. The outpatient program, she said, is where he learned about opiates.
“I had great insurance,” said Wickens, a registered nurse who worked for the state Department of Health. “I couldn’t get help.”
Ruth Bowles, executive director of the Rockland Council on Alcoholism and other Drug Dependence, weighed in that funding is desperately needed for school-based programs.
“There is no room in school districts anymore for drug prevention because of Common Core,” Bowles said.
Falco commented that the DARE school program, generally done in fifth and sixth grade, should be repeated in eighth and ninth grade.
“We have to have partnerships between law enforcement, government and parents in order to be successful,” he said.
Clarkstown Pharmacy owner Andrew Barrett, who was in the audience, spoke about how he has seen prescriptions to fill up to 360 Oxycontin painkillers at a time. Insurance companies, he stressed, need to be part of these discussions and need to be held accountable.
Task Force officials said the legislative package will include bills mandating increased insurance coverage. The task force has two more hearings left before wrapping up in June.
“We’ve got to break down these silos, get everybody working together,” Carlucci said.
On the federal level, Rep. Nita Lowey, was in Cortlandt on Tuesday to announce her co-sponsorship of the Stop Overdose Stat (SOS) Act that would provide support to overdose-prevention programs and train people on administering naloxone, an opioid antidote. Lowey also vowed to continue fighting for increased funding for Drug Free Communities grants and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program for 2015.