Pubdate: Wed, 23 Dec 2015
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2015 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: Seema Mehta, Tribune Newspapers

HOPEFULS HEAR HOW HEROIN HIT N.H. HARD

2016 Candidates Asked to Address Drug Abuse Crisis

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Zach Brewster had a long history of addiction and 
was dealing drugs after flunking out of college.

One night he injected a cocktail of cocaine and heroin and stopped 
breathing. He was taken by ambulance to the emergency room of the 
suburban hospital that employed his parents, where they were told 
their son might not survive the night.

When he pulled through, his parents thought the scare might make him 
serious about recovery.

Three days later, he was back to using heroin.

Over the last decade, families like the Brewsters have become the 
face of opioid and heroin addiction gripping the Northeast. Until 
recently, the epidemic received little attention.

But a sharp increase in heroin overdoses over the last 18 months and 
New Hampshire's first-in-thenation primary are placing the issue 
squarely in front of the country as candidates barnstorm the state.

At town halls, in diners and at house parties, candidates of both 
parties are hearing tales from anguished voters about drug addiction 
in their families.

The White House hopefuls are repeatedly grilled about their approach 
to fighting drug abuse.

"If they didn't get it before they started campaigning, they 
certainly get it now," said Tim Soucy, director of Manchester's 
Public Health Department. "We've always had heroin and opioid 
addiction issues, but it has really exploded. It's so cheap and so 
readily available."

The presidential candidates have placed a far greater emphasis on 
rehabilitation than punishment. This is a departure from nearly a 
half-century's approach, starting with President Richard Nixon's "war 
on drugs" and through the 1990s, when the number of people imprisoned 
for nonviolent drug offenses skyrocketed.

State governments began turning to rehabilitation during the first 
decade of the new millennium, but the federal government only 
recently began shifting its focus.

Brewster has seen both approaches. He has been arrested nearly a 
dozen times and has spent time in treatment centers that cost tens of 
thousands of dollars a month.

None of it worked, until one day in 2013 when he woke up in a hotel 
room surrounded by people doing drugs and he felt as though a 
"concussion grenade" went off in his head.

He acted on an overwhelming urge to call his mother and told her he 
was serious about getting straight.

"We were just assuming every phone call we got after a hiatus of not 
hearing from Zach would be the last," said his father, Bill Brewster, 
a physician at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.

The state attorney general told a legislative task force this month 
that New Hampshire was on pace this year to see a record of more than 
400 overdose deaths related to heroin and opioids - double the number 
two years ago.

A major cause is people being prescribed painkillers, developing an 
addiction and then switching to heroin because a crackdown made it 
more difficult to obtain prescription opioids and because of the 
cheap and abundant supply of the illegal narcotic.

A 30-milligram oxycodone pain pill can cost $90 to $100 on the 
street, money that can buy 10 or more doses of heroin, Soucy said.

Heroin addiction is a nationwide problem. The rate of heroin use 
doubled from 2002 to 2013, and the number of overdose deaths 
quadrupled, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Geographically, the problem is the greatest in the Midwest and the 
Northeast, and New Hampshire is one of the epicenters.

Manchester is the state's largest city, with about 110,000 residents. 
This year, paramedics have responded to nearly 700 overdose calls, 
with 85 deaths. Mayor Ted Gatsas raises the crisis with every 
candidate he meets.

"It's the first thing we have a conversation about," Gatsas said. "If 
there was any one item that was killing people at the rate that this 
is doing, people would be outraged.

"If this has not touched you yet, it will very soon."

Many of the Republican presidential candidates have personal 
connections with addiction.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has spoken about his daughter, Noelle, 
who battled prescription drug abuse and was jailed for possessing 
crack cocaine. Sen. Ted Cruz's sister and former Hewlett-Packard 
chief Carly Fiorina's daughter both overdosed and died.

The candidates' candor reflects a growing movement to increase 
awareness by being open about the cause of such deaths. It's seen in 
the too frequent obituaries of young people in the New Hampshire 
Union Leader; write-ups now include information provided by families 
about their loved ones' struggles with addiction and death by 
overdose, rather than euphemisms about "dying suddenly."

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton hosted a drug forum 
in Keene, N.H., where she laid out a $10 billion proposal that would 
send states federal money to boost treatment programs and urge law 
enforcement to focus on rehabilitation rather than incarceration.

Susan McKeown, a nurse practitioner, was among the local drug experts 
Clinton consulted. After dealing with addiction in their family, 
McKeown and her husband, Patrick, started a support group 13 years 
ago for parents of addicts in Manchester. Back then, the gatherings 
attracted parents of teens who were drinking alcohol or smoking 
marijuana, missing curfew and cutting school.

At a meeting this month, when asked whether their child was battling 
heroin or opioid addiction, all but two of the 15 attendees raised their hands.

The McKeowns were asked to expand the groups around the state. There 
are now 12, with three more scheduled to start in January.

Many obstacles remain: There is a bed shortage in residential 
programs, resulting in waiting lists that are weeks long. An effort 
to create a drug court in Manchester failed because of a lack of 
funding. And drug dealers are increasingly cutting heroin with a 
synthetic version of the analgesic fentanyl, which is much more 
powerful and is leading to more overdoses.

Zach Brewster, who has stayed away from drugs for more than a year, 
now runs the learning center at Teen Challenge, the 26-bed men's 
group home where he lived for 15 months in downtown Manchester during 
his rehabilitation. Despite its name, the group home treats adult addicts.

Brewster, now 29, said he thinks he has a "moral obligation" to share 
his experiences with others.

"Help is going to come from success stories, people who aren't afraid 
to talk about what they've come from."
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