LIVINGSTON DRUG OVERDOSE CASES ESCALATE

Meeting Aims to Educate Residents About Dangers of Substance
Abuse

An 18-year-old Fowlerville man took eight doses of methadone at a
party and died on Jan. 5, after several days on a ventilator. He lay
unconscious for several hours before friends noticed he was in trouble.

A 41-year-old Livingston County man died early this year of an
overdose of OxyContin. He had no history of substance abuse, and had a
legal prescription for the strong painkiller for a back problem. He
filled his last prescription for 60 pills, which should have lasted a
month, two days before he died. Only 11 pills were left. Shaken by the
recent fatal and near-fatal overdoses, Fowlerville Police Sgt. Everett
DeGrush had an idea.

He planned a meeting for all interested Livingston County residents,
Sunday, in Fowlerville, and is bringing together experts on substance
abuse. Police, school officials, social workers, drug experts and even
the mothers of two young men who overdosed - one who lived, and one
who didn't - will talk about the problem that has alarmed some in the
county.

After the meeting, they'll listen to anyone who wants to talk, one on
one.

DeGrush hopes it might help a family or save a life.

According to figures from the Southeast Michigan Council of
Governments, Livingston County has had the fastest growing population
of any county in the state for several years.

An officer from the Livingston and Washtenaw Narcotics Enforcement
Team, who asked not to be identified because he works undercover, said
two rural Livingston County areas are home to a three-county drug ring.

The officer said with people streaming into the county along two major
highways come illegal and abused prescription drugs and all their
accouterments - weapons, dirty cash, drug raids and overdoses.

Marijuana, the undercover officer said, is the most widely abused drug
in Livingston County and powder cocaine is second. OxyContin and
heroin are hard on its heels, along with Ecstasy, methamphetamine and
methadone.

In 2001, LAWNET seized the components for more than 20,000 doses of
methamphetamine in one raid. The number of illegal prescription drug
doses seized last year is about double what it was in 2002. LAWNET
confiscated nearly four times the marijuana last year as in the year
before.

Before 2003, DeGrush says, Livingston County saw two or three serious
overdoses a year. The last fatality he remembers, north of
Fowlerville, occurred four years earlier. Although no statistics are
kept, there have been at least four deaths in the county since 2002
due to overdoses.

Now more powerful drugs are becoming more available. According to the
LAWNET officer, heroin on the street now is 10 times more powerful
than it was 20 years ago.

DeGrush believes it is the responsibility of the entire community to
do something about the problem of substance abuse.

As a volunteer Catholic-religion teacher who works with kids on his
own time and as a cop, DeGrush recalls being shaken by the "no big
deal" attitude of a 15-year-old Fowlerville boy who chugged most of a
half-gallon of vodka and spent days in a coma and a week on a ventilator.

DeGrush will host the meeting, with open discussions from school
liaisons who want to help children and parents make good decisions;
Livingston County DARE officers who can tell parents what drugs are
out there, and a secure display of the actual drugs; a Livingston
County parole officer who can explain the penalties for drug abuse; a
social worker with avenues of help; and a Fowlerville doctor with
information about abuse of prescription drugs.

And the mothers.

"It's not going to be easy to talk about it," DeGrush said of the
women. But they're willing to tell their tragic family stories because
"they need to make a difference." It's not a police meeting, DeGrush
emphasizes. Or a religious meeting.

"It's for anyone who walks in the door," he said.