Suozzi seeks prevention task force at heroin summit

Suozzi seeks prevention task force at heroin summit

July 29, 2009 by ANDREW STRICKLER

Citing a spike in heroin use in the county over the past two years, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi called Tuesday for the formation of a new task force to share prevention information among a variety of agencies, especially related to keeping people from becoming first-time users.

"The message on this is very clear: There is no neighborhood that is immune from this. This is happening throughout Nassau County," Suozzi said in the county legislature's chamber in Mineola. The gathering of about 200 people at the county's so-called heroin summit drew representatives from schools, hospitals and community groups, as well as dozens of law enforcement, health and treatment agencies.

Heroin statistics gathered by several agencies for the event showed how widespread the problem has become: Prices for a potent variety of heroin have fallen to as little as $5 a dose; as fatal overdoses have risen, the age of people admitted to county detox and rehab programs has dropped; heroin arrests are up.

The nearly three-hour discussion touched on topics ranging from international trafficking to gaps in treatment insurance coverage. Panelists repeatedly returned to the problem of prescription pills like Percocet and Vicodin, common gateways to heroin that are also responsible for a rising number of overdoses and rehab admissions. Dr. Frank McCorry of the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, cited a study he said showed that about 85 percent of prescription pills taken recreationally were gathered from family medicine cabinets.

"If you've had any kind of surgery, I bet you have pain medication in your medicine cabinet and I bet you probably don't have a great sense of what's there and it's certainly not under lock and key," McCorry said. "As part of our prevention message we have to start to get to the interior of our medicine cabinet and to start to control that."

Suozzi said he hoped a new task force would synthesize a prevention message across a variety of private and public agencies that do separate community outreach and education efforts related to heroin and substance abuse.