Pubdate: Thu, 01 Feb 2007
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2007 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Jody Price
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

OFFICIALS DRAG THEIR FEET IN FIGHT AGAINST HEROIN ADDICTION

I would like to thank Emily Sweeney for her insightful article on the 
rise of heroin deaths and use south of Boston ("Heroin deaths on the 
rise," Globe South, Jan. 14). I am, however, disheartened that this 
epidemic continues to escalate, unabated, almost a year after Ms. 
Sweeney wrote her article on heroin use in the area, highlighting an 
information forum at the Unity Church in North Easton.

Our public officials and elected representatives continue to drag 
their feet on increased funding for, and accessibility to, aggressive 
rehabilitation and educational programs. Their inaction abandons 
families to be destroyed by the gut-wrenching fear and life-changing 
grief they suffer, struggling to save their children, then losing 
them to overdose. My own family is such a family. This is beyond 
indifference and inhuman.

Something must be done now. We cannot wait another 11 months for our 
medical and social service groups to act and our politicians to 
confront this epidemic. The first step is to ensure that when 
families, as a last desperate act, use Section 35 to commit their 
children to state facilities for 30 days, that their children be 
mandated to stay the full 30 days, and not one minute less. If 
politicians on Beacon Hill were to support such a mandate, it would 
give addicts a glimmer of hope to conquer this drug. Now, the state 
is releasing such users as early as two weeks after commitment. This 
is especially true in the new women's facility in New Bedford, where 
women have been released after two weeks and declared "ready" to 
start a new life.

Everyone who has dealt with heroin addiction knows that no one has a 
chance of recovery with only two weeks off the streets. The user not 
only returns to a hopeless life of addiction and probable death, but 
public safety remains compromised as the addict finds money in 
whatever way he or she can. The two-week approach to recovery is 
laughable, if it were not so tragic. Governor Deval Patrick offered 
us a glimmer of hope when he cited heroin use as one of the serious 
ills he sees impeding the progress of our state.

Attention, education, money, and action must come now, in the names 
of all our children we have already lost, and the many who are 
standing on the edge of the abyss.

Jody Price

Brockton
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman