PARISH TACKLES A DRUG-ABUSE EPIDEMIC

For years, St. Bernard Parish officials have been wringing their hands over
the high number of overdose deaths in our small parish.

This week, the hand-wringing was replaced by elbow grease as the Parish
Council and the Sheriff's Office announcing bold steps to curb the tide of
overdose deaths.

On Tuesday, the Parish Council took action to limit the number of pain
clinics in the parish. The council issued a moratorium on new pain
management clinics, and officials say they will now turn their attention to
tweaking zoning laws to make it more difficult for any more of these
clinics to open in the parish.

St. Bernard Parish already has four pain management clinics, Councilman
Craig Taffaro has said.

While officials haven't linked drugs obtained at any of these clinics to
recent overdoses, they warn that such clinics tend to prescribe and
dispense painkillers and methadone -- drugs that can be deadly, especially
when mixed.

At the same time, officials with the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office
described plans under way to form a state central registry of narcotic
prescriptions that would help prevent "doctor shopping," in which people go
from doctor to doctor trying to get the same prescription drugs.

Statistics recently provided by Coroner Bryan Bertucci show that in St.
Bernard Parish, which has a population of less than 70,000, there were 36
overdose deaths in 2004, 37 in 2003 and 40 deaths in 2002. There's no
estimate on the number of people who have overdosed in recent years but
survived after being brought to hospitals, Bertucci said, although
officials at Chalmette Medical Center have said their emergency room and
intensive care unit are, at times, overrun with overdose cases.

A few overdoses are from illegal drugs such as heroin or cocaine, but the
majority of the cases result from mixing prescription drugs including
methadone, Xanbar, Vicodin, the muscle-relaxer Soma and, sometimes,
alcohol, Bertucci said. While some of the deaths have been suicides, most
appear to be overdoses caused by "recreational use of prescription pills."
Methadone continues to be the biggest underlying cause of the problem, he said.

Bertucci said many of those dying of overdoses are mature adults, in the
40- to 50-year-old range. The youngest victim last year was 15, while three
victims were 57, he said.

Bertucci also said many of those who died were unemployed or on disability
and, based on discussions with family members, he said some suffered from
lack of self-esteem, lack of goals, no self-discipline or no concept of
delayed gratification.

On Tuesday, a handful of families touched by the local drug problem
attended the council meeting to cheer the Parish Council as it imposed the
moratorium on pain management clinics.

"This is a no brainer for y'all," said Russell "Rusty" Vucinovich Jr. of
Meraux, whose 18-year-old son, Russell "Lil Rusty" Vucinovich III, died an
apparent accidental overdose of prescription drugs. "There is not one of
you who don't know somebody that has been affected" by drug abuse.

While the council's action attacks the problem from one angle, the effort
to create a state centralized prescription database could be even more
far-reaching in preventing prescription drug abuse and deaths.

At Tuesday's council meeting, Capt. Pete Tufaro said the St. Bernard Parish
Sheriff's Office is working with State Police, the federal Drug Enforcement
Agency, and the state's Medical Review Board and Pharmaceutical Board to
form a state central registry of prescriptions. The effort is still in its
infancy -- only a handful of meetings have been held, Tufaro said -- and
some officials have said privacy issues may prove to be stumbling block.

But, if Louisiana succeeds in creating a centralized database, as 28 other
states already have, patients who try to abuse drugs by doctor shopping
could be thwarted.

While it's unrealistic to think these measures will stop all drug abuse and
drug deaths in our community, the Parish Council, the Sheriff's Office and
their partner state and federal agencies deserve praise for trying to find
strong medicine to fight the problem.