Middle Police Partnership Seeks to Help Addicts Recover

COURT HOUSE – Middle Township Police held a press conference Oct. 4 to announce their partnership with a faith-based initiative operated by the Lighthouse Church to offer help to a broad range of addicts seeking recovery.
The initiative is another step in the department’s intervention efforts aimed at impacting the epidemic of drug and alcohol dependency with wrecked lives, associated crime, and even deaths in its wake.
Police Chief Christopher Leusner said stepped-up enforcement would continue, but he also said, “We cannot arrest our way out of this problem.”
Matching intervention and education programs with enforcement, the department aims to reduce the number of individuals in the township with serious addictions. “If you want help, we can get you help,” Leusner said.
Christians United for Recovery (CURE), an organization organized through the church, will serve as the partner that matches addicts desiring help with facilities and services that can provide it. CURE will help handle all aspects of a placement or service relationship, even finding assistance for those without insurance.
One of the unique aspects of the program is its broad focus. Many other programs focus on a specific aspect of the problem like helping those who have overdosed on heroin. CURE will help addicts regardless of the source of addiction so that it is just as available for the person with an alcohol dependency as a drug problem.
Leusner said that any addict seeking help could come directly to the police. No investigation will be opened. The individual will be connected to CURE and then through them to appropriate resources.
The new program complements existing intervention efforts like the public advocate program run in conjunction with Cape Assist, a community substance abuse prevention and treatment agency. Cape Assist representatives were also in attendance to welcome the new program to the fight against addiction.
Leusner’s message was clear that those who seek help after an arrest will not have their charges dropped, but will get the help they seek.
“Often a judge will take into consideration that a defendant is getting help,” he said.
County Prosecutor Robert Taylor lent his support to intervention efforts as he lauded the new partnership. Taylor said, “Middle Township is in the forefront” of intervention efforts to combat addiction. Taylor said efforts at the Prosecutor’s Office also aim to educate with available presentations and web-based videos speaking to the growing dependence on the overuse of prescription drugs.
Middle Township resident Debbie Robson urged parents to embrace the new CURE program and not continue to “hide behind the shame” of a child or relative’s addiction. “It is so important to ask for help,” she said.
Robson told the tale of an addicted daughter who is a mother of four and is now missing after “sneaking out of the house” to avoid intervention.
Suanne Agger, a recovery specialist with Advocating for Substance Abuse, spoke of the outreach to addicts seeking medical help at Cape Regional Medical Center. Since the program was introduced at the hospital in December 2015, contact has been made with 155 individuals with available programs and resources explained to them.
The Lighthouse Church’s Charles Harrah, “Pastor Charlie,” spoke of the numbers behind the problem.
Harrah said he had read about a presentation of the numbers in terms of a mythical city, Herointown. The point was that if one were able to assemble all of the heroin dependent individuals in the state in one place, the resulting city, Herointown, would be New Jersey’s fourth largest with a population of over 128,000.
Heroin addiction is an important part, but only one part of the addiction problem the new program is attempting to address. Adding pain killer addictions and alcohol dependency to the list balloons the number substantially.
A kick-off of yet another Middle Township Police program Oct. 3, Put The Brakes on Fatalities, is itself related to the new effort when one considers the road fatalities that are tied to drivers impaired by either drugs or alcohol.
The reach of addiction into the fabric of the community is significant. The word epidemic is not misused. The impact goes well beyond those with the dependencies.
Middle Township Police Department continues to add to its range of options as the struggle against addiction and its effects on the community continues. This new partnership, funded entirely by donations, is another step in that struggle.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.