By Karen Berkowitz
Pioneer Press Newspapers
LAKE COUNTY, Ill. — Any parent or grandparent with a half-empty bottle of a prescription painkiller in the medicine cabinet could unwittingly contribute to the heroin epidemic, panelists said during a Thursday forum on curbing drug and alcohol abuse by young people.
A common story that Lake County professionals say they hear over and over again goes something like this: A high school athlete suffers a sports injury and becomes hooked on the painkiller his or her physician prescribes. The young person looks elsewhere for the drug, often turning first to the medicine cabinet. Eventually, the addicted youth discovers that a $5 bag of heroin provides the same relief as a $40 or $50 bottle of pain pills purchased on the black market.
Initiatives to promote the safe disposal of unused pain medicine were among the strategies discussed by forum speakers, including State Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie). Lang led a bipartisan push in 2015 to enact a law that tackles the surge in heroin and opioid use. The measure, which Lang described as the most comprehensive piece of such legislation in the country, passed both chambers unanimously and survived a gubernatorial veto.
“We started with the notion that it was time we stopped incarcerating young people who were hooked on drugs, and spent more time treating them,” said Lang, who headed a 39-legislator task force. “So the first thing we wanted to do was keep them out of jail, get them in treatment … and use the savings from the correctional system toward treatment.”
The legislation creates a pharmaceutical drug disposal program effective in 2018, strengthens the state’s drug courts and requires that pharmacies update patient drug records daily rather than weekly, Lang said. “We have many patients who go ER hopping,” Lang said. “They go from one emergency room to the next and pile up prescriptions.”
The forum, titled “Drug Dilemma: Parent, Professional and Community Response” was convened by Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering, who moderated the discussion.
Other panelists included Lake County State’s Attorney Michael Nerheim; Bruce Johnson, chairman of the Lake County Underage Drinking and Drug Prevention Task Force; and Mark Filler, who lost his son to a heroin overdose and is chairman of the Jordan Michael Filler Foundation. Other participants included Barbara de Nekker, executive director of Community – The Anti-Drug, a coalition in Highland Park, Deerfield and other towns within Township High School District 113. Also participating was Gus Pappadimas, a Highland Park High School psychologist.
Earlier in the day, the National Center on Drug Control Policy announced that heroin overdose deaths had increased 23 percent last year, from 10,574 in 2014 to 12,990 in 2015. Overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids jumped from 5,544 in 2014 to 9,580 in 2015, an increase of 73 percent. The sharp rise in synthetic opioid deaths was fueled by fentanyl-related overdoses, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control.
“One of the first things we did county-wide was to put naloxone in the hands of our police officers,” Nerheim said, of a drug that can quickly reverse the effects of an opiate overdose. He noted that while paramedics have long carried naloxone, “The reality is, if somebody calls 911, the police are almost always going to get there first by several minutes.”
In two years, 128 lives have been saved in Lake County due to naloxone. But Nerheim said the county must do a better job of getting people into treatment. Often, people treated with the life-saving drug return to using after they’re released from the hospital.
The state’s attorney spoke of a new program called A Way Out that allows motivated addicts to report to one of seven police departments throughout the county to seek treatment, regardless of where they happen to live. The departments are Lake Forest, Libertyville, Mundelein, Grayslake, Gurnee, Round Lake Park and Round Lake Beach. Law enforcement personnel make the call to a treatment facility and transport them.
Nerheim said other police agencies are eager to participate, but it’s important not to overextend the county’s treatment capacity.
“We knew early on that the worst thing that could happen was if somebody says, ‘OK, I’m going to give this thing a try,’ and they walk in and we have to tell them, We have nowhere to send you,” Nerheim said.
One question put to panelists was whether the legalization of medical marijuana was contributing to teens’ perception that marijuana is not harmful.
Copyright 2016 Pioneer Press Newspapers