OPIATES IN OUR TOWNS: SHERIFF'S HEROIN FORUM
DRAWS A PACKED HOUSE

NORTH ANDOVER - More than 500 people packed a gymnasium at Merrimack
College yesterday, driven to learn more about the county's heroin and
prescription drug epidemic.

There was so much interest in the event that some people were turned away
at the door. "It really shows that people realize the problem we have, and
it really shows a community response to the problem," said District
Attorney Jonathan Blodgett, who planned the event with Sheriff Frank
Cousins of Newburyport. Both Blodgett and Cousins said they were pleased
the room was filled with people from a variety of backgrounds - parents,
teachers, principals and doctors - not just police.

Cousins said heroin has become cheap - $4 - and far more potent. Heroin
overdoses have been reported in all 34 Essex County communities, and at
least two Newburyporters have been jailed for possession.

Among the dignitaries at the event was Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey. Healey said
the governor's office has taken notice of the heroin problem - 58 Essex
County residents died of overdoses in 2001, many of them youths. Healey
promised that the governor's next budget would include additional dollars
for treatment, dollars that were cut during the state's budget crisis. No
one claimed to have the final solution, but after listening to speakers
discuss the toll the drugs are taking on Essex County, participants said
they were committed to working as a community to make people aware of the
problem and end the crisis.

One parent there was Charles Rosa, a West Peabody father who has lost two
sons to heroin overdoses - 20-year-old Vincent, who died Oct. 29, 2003, and
23-year-old Domenic, who died last November. Rosa carries laminated
pictures of both sons inside a tattered plastic baggy he keeps in his
pocket. Rosa has four children remaining, he said, including twin
8-year-old boys. When he asked them what they wanted for Christmas this
year, one of them said, "I want my brothers back."

"I can't bury another kid," Rosa said. "I have to continue for my kids and
the others that look up to me, but it's hard. ... It never goes away. You
wake up thinking about it, you go to bed thinking about it." Rosa was not
certain what he would get out of the conference, but he hoped he would meet
someone that would give him an opportunity to make a difference in the
region's drug fight.

That fight is centered on the area's cheap and powerful heroin. During the
past few years, it has become clear to law enforcement and medical
professionals that young people are becoming hooked on opiate-based
prescription drugs such as OxyContin, and then moving on to heroin, which
at less than $10 a bag is cheaper, more readily available and so pure it
can be sniffed. Last year, there were nearly 5,000 admissions to Essex
County treatment facilities for heroin and other opiate abuse, said Dr.
Stephen Valle, president of ADCARE Criminal Justice Services. At least 8
percent of the admissions were people between the ages of 18 and 20.

"We can talk about and discuss all the indicators and statistics that
describe this heroin epidemic," said George Festa, director of the federal
government's local drug trafficking office. "But we must never forget
that heroin abusers are individuals and heroin abuse not only affects the
individual user, but the user's family, friends, community and society as
a whole." But during a panel discussion, Valle noted that even before the
budget cuts began in 2002, state treatment centers already were
under-budgeted and treatment beds were at a premium.

"We must recognize that the (spending) base we are trying to get back to
was the base that was inadequate five years ago," Valle said. "What we need
to do is start treating (addiction) as a disease. No other disease in
America will you get so many blocks and challenges to getting care as you
will an addiction problem."

Healey said the state plans to address a problem several speakers touched
upon: There is no way to measure how many fatal and nonfatal overdoses
occur in the state because hospitals typically do not release that
information to law enforcement.

Even during the panel discussion, law officers and treatment specialists
disagreed on whether it was appropriate for hospitals to call police when
an overdose patient comes in for treatment.

Healey said that in two months, the state Department of Public Health will
begin a program where hospitals give daily reports on how many overdose
incidents they have treated. She compared the new "early warning system"
with those already in place for infectious diseases.

But overwhelmingly, the most common theme of the day was the importance of
education when it comes to preventing young people from trying these drugs
in the first place.

There appeared to be agreement that schools are no longer doing enough to
educate students about the dangers of drug use. That has to change. "We
eliminated DARE in our schools because somebody decided it was too
expensive or ineffective. But what do we replace it with? Nothing?" said
officer Larry Wentzell, the student resource officer in Lynn. There may be
problems with resources and getting access to treatment beds, said Paula
Perlmutter, an outreach worker at the Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse
Research at Children's Hospital in Boston, "but what we do have is
people - neighbors and friends who have faced this problem and overcome
it. "Often we complicate things, but it comes down to one human being
helping another human being."