Pubdate: Sun, 18 May 2014 Source: Boston Globe (MA) Copyright: 2014 Globe Newspaper Company Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340 Website: http://bostonglobe.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52 Author: Robert Knox FORUM TO TELL PARENTS ABOUT OPIATE ABUSE Drugs today aren't the way they were when "we" were young, say police and parents who are dealing with their impact today. The drugs of the 1980s - cocaine and crack - have been replaced by opiates - prescription drugs and heroin - and a cheap high from a hit of heroin can turn into a death trip far more easily than a snort of cocaine, said Carver Police Chief Marc Duphily. "You may think you know what to warn your kids about when it comes to drugs and alcohol," Duphily said, "but there are startling trends and methods of use making their way through teen social circles." To help close the knowledge gap, the Carver police force is hosting "A Substance Abuse Awareness Program for Parents" on Monday from 7 to 9 p.m. in the auditorium of Carver Middle/High School. The program will offer "eye-opening information" on prescription meds, household products, and street drugs; plus advice on warning signs, tips for communicating with children, and strategies for intervention. Professionals in the law enforcement and treatment field will speak about prevention and intervention, and users and parents will speak from tragic experience. Plymouth parents Tom and Michelle Audette lost their 23-year-old daughter, Jillian, to a heroin overdose, a tragedy completely "unexpected" to them, Tom Audette said last week. "She was not somebody with a drug history," Audette said. After graduating from high school in Plymouth, she was working and had moved out of the family home to live with a boyfriend. "She had a good head on her shoulders. "When you get your child through high school into adulthood, you feel like you won the battle," Audette recalled. "When we got that knock on the door at three-fifteen in the morning and were told that our daughter had died from a heroin overdose, we were absolutely shocked." The Audettes now believe it's essential to raise public awareness, particularly among parents and children, to the reality that the drug climate has changed and deaths by overdose are more common - throughout society, in cities and suburbs, among all backgrounds - than ever before. In the town of Carver alone, Duphily said last week, police have recorded eight overdoses already this year, four of them fatal. The overdoses follow an upward trend in opiate drug use. Last year Carver police made 31 drug-related arrests, up from 16 the year before. The local overdose problem matches a statewide problem that appears to be at its worst in Southeastern Massachusetts. Earlier this year State Police reported that 185 people had died statewide - not counting others in the cities of Boston, Worcester, and Springfield - from suspected heroin overdoses over a four-month period. In Taunton alone, police have recorded more than 140 overdoses this year, 10 of them fatal. "It's not a problem we can arrest our way out of," Duphily said. Police can do their job, the courts play a role, and various prevention and rehab programs can help, too, he said. But parents also need to know what's going on and what they can do to reach their own children. "It's changed so dramatically since most parents were kids," Duphily said. Police and other professionals dealing with drug use point to an increased availability of powerful opiate painkillers such as OxyContin to explain the rise in heroin's popularity. People become addicted to prescription painkillers - obtained either through legal prescriptions or illegally, as word of their popularity spread - and then look for other ways to fill their need when the pills run out. Heroin fills that niche. And compared with buying opiate pills illegally, street heroin is much cheaper, costing about $10 a hit, Duphily said. Drug dealers have rushed in to meet the demand. "Heroin is so much cheaper," he said. "Addicts are always trying to recapture that first high." But heroin is "mixed" differently from batch to batch, Duphily said. A user encountering a much more powerful preparation can suffer an overdose - sometimes fatally. Audette also pointed out that you don't need to use a needle to give yourself an overdose. You can snort a fatal overdose of heroin, he said. While parents are probably aware of the police's role in enforcement, they may not be aware of the work of other organizations dealing with substance use or with recent legal developments such as the Section 35 involuntary commitments, Duphily said. Section 35 of Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 123 provides for involuntary civil commitment for an alcohol or drug abuser. Parents or others can apply to the court for evaluation of the person they believe to be a substance abuser. If the evaluation confirms the problem, the individual can be committed for 90 days to a rehab center. Typically the procedure has been used to seek treatment for alcohol abusers, Duphily said. "We go from protective custody to commitment." These days more Section 35 applications are being made for narcotics users. Plymouth District Court Judge Rosemary Minehan will speak Monday night on Section 35 and Drug Court. Other presenters at the awareness program, in addition to the Audettes and Duphily, include representatives of organizations dealing with the drug problem: a representative from the Plymouth district attorney's office; Patrick Cronin, a program coordinator for Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery; Carver Police Officer Dennis Rizzuto Jr.; Heather Kennedy of the Brockton Mayor's Opioid Overdose Prevention Coalition; and Linda Drew of South Shore Wellness and Renewal, a counseling and clinical service based in Weymouth. The program includes a question-and-answer session. "Youth attendance" is not intended, the planners say, at a program stressing "candid dialogue among adults." - --- MAP posted-by: Matt