The Town Journal, March 21, 2016
Sometimes, kids get their first taste of opiates at “pill parties” where pills are provided for sampling and peer pressure takes over. Occasionally, it may be just another drug tried after casual use of “gateway” drug such as alcohol or marijuana.
But the majority of heroin users start with opiates, according to law enforcement officials. Then for reasons not understood, some kids will end up addicted to the powerful opiate painkillers; some will not.
But for the ones that get hooked, addiction often leads down a terrible path of increasing use of opiates, and then to injecting heroin, which is a lot cheaper than opiates. All too often, heroin destroys the life of the addict, their family, and can prove ultimately fatal despite all the help and services available.
That was the scenario described repeatedly by a panel of state, county, social service and law enforcement officials who gathered March 12 to discuss ways to combat the county’s growing heroin abuse problem – and related issues of alcoholism and mental health – at a Northwest Bergen Mayors’ Association meeting at Northern Highlands Regional High School.
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A sophomore at Northern Highlands, Stephanie Reifman, spoke about HAPPY, or Heroin Addiction Prevents People’s Years, a program she developed due to Glee actor Cory Monteith’s overdose death in 2013 from heroin.
She created the program to educate parents, students and the community about the county’s heroin epidemic while at Cavallini Middle School in Upper Saddle River. It features an interview with a recovering addict and parent of an overdose victim.
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