COURT HOUSE – Despite the bucolic mainland on one side of the county traversed by iconic main streets and pristine beaches and the Atlantic framing the other, there are social problems aplenty that mar the sense of well-being in many of its communities.
One of the most critical of these problems is the abuse and misuse of prescription drugs especially by minors including students as young as primary schoolers. In an on-going effort to reverse this trend, Jan. 21 Cape May County Pride Committee held its annual Prescription Drug Conference with the theme this year, “Opiate Abuse and the Link to Heroin Use.”
The target audience for the day’s presentations included those related to helping students in the county’s schools. They included guidance counselors, teachers, social workers and administrators.
Formed in 2013, the Pride Committee is funded through the Sea Isle City Board of Education and includes members from that board, the County Prosecutor’s Office, the county Office of Education as well as the Department of Human Services, among other education-related organizations.
On the program, speakers presented facts and figures about the rapidly expanding problem of prescription drug abuse and heroin misuse as well as other social problems such as dysfunctional family life, sexting, technology dependence and bullying, which can influence attitudes to taking drugs.
For example, 26 percent of the county’s 11th grade students reported that it was “fairly easy” or even “very easy” to obtain prescription drugs. While a whopping 96 percent of them know it’s “wrong” or “very wrong” to take such drugs there were more deaths in the state from overdoses than car accidents by a ratio of 2:1. Nationwide, more than 43,000 deaths resulted from narcotics in 2010 (the latest year for which statistics are available).
According to additional statistics provided at the conference, in 2014, 55 percent of all Cape May County treatment admissions were for opiates and heroin.
A drug carried by emergency medical personnel and police which can reverse the effect of an overdose is Narcan, available at CVS pharmacies as an over-the-counter product.
Deployment of Narcan has been lowering the number of fatal overdoses in Cape May County. Nevertheless, there still were 17 fatal overdoses reported county-wide in 2015 with Narcan deployed 55 times, saving 55 lives. Narcan is not always effective in saving a life since an individual might have an adverse reaction to it such as seizure, heart attack or interruption of heart rhythms.
Hooked on Tech
During his presentation on technology dependence, expert speaker John Kriger noted that today’s youth are so dependent on technology that they will even text or take a phone call during an important job interview and using smartphones while driving remains a dangerous trend.
Kriger said that for the first time researchers have made a connection between substance abuse, technology dependence, and an increased potential for violent behavior.
Kriger then described how young people may obtain prescription drugs from their parents, a little at a time or even attend open-house events where they sneak into bathrooms to surreptitiously take a few pills here and there.
Once a quantity is gathered, they attend “pharming” parties where participants put their pharma “harvest” in a bowl which is then mixed together and distributed by the handful to get high.
Another technique is to combine drugs to accelerate their effect or increase their potency. “Pancakes and syrup” is such a “symbiotic combination” whereby the “pancakes” or pills are ingested with the “syrup” as in cough syrup to form a highly toxic mix.
Kriger showed slides of photos of the human brain both normal and those affected by drug ingestion including marijuana. Substance-affected brains were clearly marked by areas that appeared white and dead indicating that those portions of the brain had ceased to function.
Questions ranged from how to combat “big business” which promotes substance use of all kinds to how adults can be more proactive rather than merely reactive?
First and foremost, said Kriger, parents need to be the first line of defense by understanding what their children are doing, where they are going and with whom.
“Some parents ask me, is it OK for me to go into my child’s room or to ask what they’re doing on the computer?’” And my answer always is, ‘How can you not?” concluded Kriger.
To contact Camille Sailer, email csailer@cmcherald.com.
