FUNDING PLEDGED TO FIGHT DRUG ABUSE

Mayor's Initiative Backs Treatment

Mayor Thomas M. Menino pledged yesterday to allocate $180,000 in city
funds to combat heroin and prescription drug abuse and said he'll use
his office as a "bully pulpit" to push alternative treatments for
adolescent addicts. "This is an epidemic threatening to tear apart the
fabric of Boston's neighborhoods," Menino said, pledging to support
"new solutions to a very difficult problem." The mayor's initiative,
entitled Neighborhoods Organizing Against Drugs, would double from 300
to 600 the number of users who can be treated with acupuncture, often
used to ease withdrawal, and Buprenorphine, a drug given to some
addicts of heroin and opioids such as OxyContin, Percocet, and
Vicodin. Menino's plan also provides small grants for drug-prevention
community groups and the hiring of a full-time health educator to
focus on substance-abuse issues. It also calls for electronic tracking
of overdose records so they can be more readily shared among police,
emegency medical technicians, and neighborhoods.

The initiative marks a shift in how the city is handling its
substance-abuse problems among young people.

While Menino and Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole said they
would still pursue drug dealers, they also noted the importance of
intervention, particularly for the youngest offenders with a family
support system. "While the police play a crucial role, at the end of
the day we see this as a public health problem," Menino said. "I know
it isn't popular to advocate treatment for addicts, but that is just
what we all need to do." O'Toole said the department makes thousands
of substance abuse-related arrests every year, but that it is
committed to a "multipronged" approach of prevention, intervention,
and enforcement.

John Auerbach, executive director of the Boston Public Health
Commission, said that the city's "black market" of prescription drugs
such as OxyContin often leads young people to heroin use.

According to the commission, the city's heroin-related hospitalization
rates increased 78 percent among 15- to 24-year-olds in the past two
years alone. Deaths resulting from heroin overdoses have spiked 500
percent in Boston during the last 10 years.

With the increasing purity and availability of heroin -- selling on
the street for as little as $4 a bag -- the drug has permeated a
younger crowd and flooded the state's drug-abuse hot line with calls
from parents. "We've heard from parents of adolescents. We've heard
from EMTs shaken up after transporting 14-year-olds," said Auerbach.
"And we've heard from people we regularly have to turn away every day
seeking detox services, because they simply cannot find the beds for
them to receive treatment." Menino criticized Governor Mitt Romney for
cuts in drug-treatment funding and said he will promote increased
state and federal support to fight substance abuse. Maryanne
Frangules, the executive director of the Massachusetts Organization
for Addiction Recovery, praised Menino's commitment. She said grieving
families affected by substance abuse can no longer wait. "How many
times do you read an obituary that says `died suddenly'? I'll tell you
what it means -- it means somebody died of an overdose," Frangules
said. "We all have a voice.

There are powerful voices within this community."