Funds Flow To Fight Drugs

Funds Flow To Fight Drugs
Worcester County DA gets $393,000 to gather info on opioid problem

News staff photo by Damien Fisher Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. announces new federal funding that will help save lives and battle the opiate addiction crisis in Worcester County.


Fast Facts
113 overdose deaths in Worcester County in 2014
120 overdose deaths in Worcester County in 2013
78 overdose deaths in Worcester County in 2012

Damien Fisher
News Staff Writer

WORCESTER  Area law enforcement is getting new tools to take on the addiction crisis in Worcester County, thanks to a new federal grant for the Worcester District Attorney’s Office.

“Plain and simple, this grant will help us save lives,” said Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr.

The $393,000 grant will go toward creating a database on opiate addiction and will give police, educators, health care professionals and communities the information they need to combat the problem. The grant is from the Harold Rodgers Prescription Drug Managing Program, with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, an arm of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The two-year grant is one of only 14 given out across the country. The four specific goals of the project are to improve data quality and monitoring; reduce the number of people diverting, misusing and abusing prescription drugs and opioids; reduce the number of unintentional opioid overdose deaths; and increase the capacity of law enforcement to investigate and respond to crimes involving prescription drugs and opioids. The data gathered will be used by the Worcester County Opiate Addiction Task Force.

The funding couldn’t come at a better time, Mr. Early said. Over the past several years, Mr. Early has seen the cases of opiate addiction and overdose continue to rise at al alarming rate.

“I’ve never seen it like this,” he said. Soccer moms and suburban businessmen are being caught up in the web of addiction, and the effects on the community include higher crime rates, more cases of child abuse and neglect, and more opiate overdoses, he said.

Heroin can be seen in the lives of children whose parents are addicted, Mr. Early said. The recent case of the death of Avalena “Ava” Conway Coxon, the 2-year-old girl who died in foster care in Auburn, has a heroin connection, he said. The girl was taken away from her mother and put into foster care because the mother was an addict, Mr. Early said. The mother later died from an overdose, he said.

The Task Force, started this year, has already made an impact with education, outreach and Narcan deployment to area police departments. This year there have already been 89 opiate-related overdose deaths, but Mr. Early said that figure would be two to three time higher without the use of Narcan. Narcan is a drug that can reverse an overdose and is now being carried by police and other first-responders trained to use the drug.

Massachusetts and Worcester County have been suffering over the last three years from the opioid epidemic that has seen many people move from the abuse of pain medication prescribed by a doctor to heroin being bought on the street, according to Mr. Early.

Opioid overdose deaths spiked from 78 in 2012 to 120 in 2013. Thirty-nine of Worcester County’s 60 communities had at least one overdose death in 2013 and more than a quarter of the communities had multiple overdose deaths.

Last year, there were 113 suspected overdose deaths throughout Worcester County.

Most of the people addicted to heroin, close to 80 percent, started with opiate-based prescription painkillers, Mr. Early said. It’s a short and sad trip from there to using heroin. Mr. Early said heroin sells on the street now for $4 to $5 a bag, and the dealers are starting early to catch the morning commuters, he said.

The information gathered through this grant will let the Task Force know where the problems spots are, and where to allocate time, money and manpower to save lives, Mr. Early said.

“This will help all of us,” he said. “This grant will give us the tools to do more things.”

Mr. Early wants to see the efforts focus on schools, and teaching children the real dangers of these drugs that are so prevalent. Addiction to opiates is so common, and so easy to start, he said.

“One pill can be a game-changer,” he said.

Among the actions the grant will support are a partnership with the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences University. Best practices currently evolving throughout the nation will be reviewed. A partnership with the University of Massachusetts Medical Center will focus on new strategies currently being developed to fight the epidemic. The grant will also fund an up-to-date public education campaign focusing on prevention. The combined effort will emphasize public awareness of the potential risks of prescription opioids, safeguarding and proper disposal of prescriptions and availability of treatment resources.