With each introduction, the extent of the heroin epidemic plaguing the region came into greater focus. In the first row was a woman whose daughter is a heroin addict and has been to rehab five times. Behind her was a grandfather who said his grandson would be dead if he wasn’t picked up each of the three times he overdosed.
Over his shoulder was a young man in recovery, and across the room was a man in his 26th year of being clean. Joining them was a father who lost a daughter, a recovering addict and graduate student, and a middle-aged man — one of many people to describe themselves as a “person of longtime recovery” — who attended five funerals in the past month.
Such was the scene at the start of “Let’s Talk About the Heroin Epidemic,” a community forum held at The Music Hall Loft on Monday, April 27. About 80 people were there, including local and state officials, to share ideas and receive updates from prevention, treatment, and recovery workers and law enforcement. The event came less than a week after the city marked its second heroin overdose death this year.
Health officials expect the number of lives lost to heroin in New Hampshire this year to “eclipse” the 321 registered in 2014, said Sandi Coyle, the regional coordinator for Allies in Substance Abuse Prevention at the United Way of the Greater Seacoast. The majority of those deaths are people in their 20s and 30s and the trail leading to heroin overdoses starts with young people abusing alcohol, marijuana, and prescription drugs, according to Coyle.
To have the programs cut down to where they are right now, it’s horrible. — Heidi Moran
of Southeastern New Hampshire Services
Portsmouth resident Crystal Paradis said she organized the event following the death of a friend and local writer, Cody Laplante. “We had to do something,” she said, but she wasn’t sure what so she sought the public’s help. Following the forum, she felt encouraged that there are so many “people impassioned and ready to do something.”
Jason Corkum, nearing two and half years of recovery after a “25-year run,” said communities have to get creative with the ways they engage addicts and personal contact is critical. “I know for me, when I was getting high, whoever was knocking on the door, I was dying for them to just open the thing and let me out,” he said.
Yet it’s become harder to keep that door open due to state budget cuts, according to Heidi Moran, clinical administrator for Southeastern New Hampshire Services in Dover, and it’s been widely reported that New Hampshire currently ranks next to last of states at providing treatment services. Before budget cuts, Moran said her 28-day rehab program ran six to eight weeks, and the 90-day halfway house extended up to a year. Today she also lacks transitional housing options, though at one point she was able to provide three apartments and three bedrooms.
“We need funding,” Moran said. “The longer people can receive continuous structure and help and guidance and counseling and support … the more effective … and to have the programs cut down to where they are right now, it’s horrible.”
“We’re not going to arrest our way out of this. We need to come up with different solutions.”
— Portsmouth Police Sgt. David Keaveny
Sgt. David Keaveny said the Portsmouth Police Department is changing its views as it grapples with the epidemic. “We’re not going to arrest our way out of this,” he said. “We need to come up with different solutions,” including a peer-to-peer program. “People who have been through the experience are probably more apt to talk about … how they saw the light,” he said.
Portsmouth police are looking into whether they have the authority to admit someone at risk of overdosing to the emergency room without their permission, similar to what happens with people threatening suicide, according to Keaveny.
Keaveny said two or three officers are dedicated to going after “people looking to make a profit off of heroin,” but “we’re trying to change our views on the people who might get arrested” so they can be directed to counseling or a drug diversion court. He said people who have been arrested are inclined to plead guilty and avoid a prolonged ordeal, but he encouraged the audience and others to be an “advocate for that person. Let their story be known to the prosecution, let their story be known to the judge.”