A forum on opioid and heroin abuse discussed sobering statistics – including the fact, shared by North Branford Police, that six overdose deaths have occurred in North Branford since 2014. Panel members also provided insight through professional, personal and legislative takes on how to recognize the problem, and what’s being done to address it locally and statewide.

About 70 citizens turned out on Dec. 6 for the North Branford Substance Abuse Forum in the North Branford auditorium. Following the panel talk, audience input from residents with family members in crisis said greater support and investment is needed from town to increase connections with mental health/substance abuse programs, as well as to possibly establish a town-supported, stand-alone Youth and Family Services counseling program here. Others in the audience suggested North Branford Public Schools (NBPS) begin opioid and heroin abuse discussions at the elementary grade level. A parent also suggested some of the panel representatives reconvene for a future discussion with the town’s high schoolers.

The forum brought several NBPS representatives to the audience including Superintendent of Schools Scott Schoonmaker and Jerome Harrison School principal Carter Welch, who was the night’s moderator. Also present in the audience were NBPS Licensed Clinical Social Workers Annie Masselle and Eve Ostroswki as well as Nicole Lacroix, Health Educator and Malik White, Student Counselor.

The school professionals gave audience members immediate feedback on what’s being done at schools including in health classes at the middle school and high school level. They urged parents to follow up on what’s being discussed at those schools and also to talk to their children of all ages about these issues. Schoomanker noted various components of the high school and middle school health program discuss topics including substance abuse while the district also shares a number of outreach programs and retains White, a certified alchol and drug counselor, to be at school five days a week.

“So we have a support sytem internally within school, but we can always do more -- we’re aware of that,” said Schoonmaker, adding “... there’s no question we are a small distict [and] I don’t like to always come back to funding and resourcses.”

Schoonmaker joined NBPS in 2009. He noted that, as a high school principal of 13 years in another small district, Old Saybrook, where the town has an active, stand-alone Youth and Family Services Bureau; the issue is also hard to tackle.

“To date, I’ve lost six (former students) to overdoses in Old Saybrook in last four or five years. That’s a high percent coming out of a district that small. We have a very active Youth and Family Service [agency] in Old Saybrook with four counselors -- and I took one with me to North Branford,” said Schoonmaker, referring to White.

Lacroix noted that parents are notified of each new section of health education taking place in their child’s classroom, but rarely do parents give feedback or ask questions.

In addition to continuing to work to gather more resources to assist at the school level, Schoonmaker, a parent of two high school and two middle school-aged children, noted that prevention and education needs to extend to inside the home.

“It can’t fall soley on the schools. As parents, we need to step up. We need to have these hard conversations,” said Schoonmaker. “Reach out, educate yourself; find out what’s going on in your school so you are aware what the topics are and what's happening.”

Speaking on behalf of the North Branford Police Department (NBPD), panel member and NBPD Detective Sgt. Sean Anderson said, “...on a police department level, we want to open the doors. We want to help people in order to move their lives forward and keep their lives.”

In cases involving overdose incidents, “...life preservation is the number one priority,” Anderson added. “If someone is in need of treatment and help, we’re a liaison to outside agencies (so) we can point them and the family in the right direction to help them get treatment. As a police department (we) want people to come to us (or) invite us to your house to talk to you (and) inform you.”

Anderson added in most overdose cases, while there is "a criminal element” involved, police will likely be looking for “good, solid evidence (to) target the dealer” bringing substances into the community.

Anderson also shared that he’s a lifelong North Branford resident who graduated high school in 1999.

“I didn’t see heroin in high school – marijuana was the go-to drug,” said Anderson. “I got hired in 2003 and at the point on patrol, heroin was always a problem, but not like it is today. Nowadays, you stop a car, and we’re looking at needles all over the place,” as well as opioids such as Suboxone and Methodone.

“It exists in this town,” said Anderson. “The majority of the things I do investigate are drug-related, [even] shoplifting. There’s probably someone walking out of Big Y right now who needs that product to support their habit.”

Another panel member was North Branford Fire Department Paramedic Supervisor and American Medical Response (AMR) Paramedic Manager John McFarland. McFarland said Narcan, which is an anti-overdose drug, is on board at all times with NBFD paramedics. In his role with AMR, which covers several outlying towns including New Haven and Hamden, McFarland said paramedics are is administering Narcan “... five or six times a day.”

He noted kids responding to peer pressure and youngsters who are exposed to parents or relatives involved in addiction can get caught up in substance abuse.

“Hopefully by education and reaching out to the parents we can help,” said McFarland.

In addition to Det. Sgt. Anderson and McFarland, other panel members were State Representatives Vincent Candelora (R-District 86) and Sean Scanlon (D-District 98), Guilford pediatrician Dr. Robert Nolfo, South Central Substance Abuse Council’s Marlene McGann and Guilford mom Sue Kruczek.

“I think a lot of parents are in denial and even if they aren’t in denial they don’t know where to turn,” said McGann. “It’s a very confusing system out there. We do a good job in Connecticut but there’s also room to do better.”

Part of the problem, even if a parent with a child in crisis wants to find out more, is “...heroin kills quickly. They turn around and their kid has overdosed,” said McGann.

She cautioned, due to the lethality of today’s street drugs, “...experimentation is no longer a phase, not with the kind of drugs that are on the streets these days. And we have given a mixed message to our young people; who say pot’s a drug they interpret as legal, because small amounts have been legalized. So they get the short message that it’s not dangerous.”

McGann also said, “Talking in high schools to high school kids [and their parents], that's great, but it’s way too late. “

Kruczek shared the story of her late son, Nick, who was an elite-level hockey player. As a 14 year-old high school freshman, Nick was given a “little white pill” (the Kruczek family lived in Madison at the time) from an upperclassman before his very first varsity game. That pill led to a cycle of heroin addiction which Nick finally revealed to his family when he was 19 and asked for help getting into rehab.

“I was quickly educated on opiates and the destruction of opiates and addiction,” said Kruczek.

The family found a detox facility in Florida where Nick spent his 20th birthday and remained through June of 2013. But after returning here and receiving probation for a misdemeanor charge that occurred before he left for Florida, he was not allowed to go back to the Florida facility.

“Had it been a felony, he would have been able to go back, and they would have paid for it. So Nick took a few classes at Southern (SCSU), he got a job and he got an apartment,” said Kruczek, adding her son had always either called or texted her every day. “A couple of months later, I didn’t get my phone call. Or my text. That’s when I knew something was wrong. I went to his apartment, and that’s when I found Nick and that he had lost his battle with addiction; 11 days before he should have turned 21.”

Holding up a large school photo of her son, she said, “So I’m here to show you, this is your face of addiction. It’s our neighbor, our friend, our teammate, our sibling and our children.”

Also sharing a personal story was an audience member, “Angelica,” now a college student, who talked about what it was like to have parents ensnared by substance abuse.

Assisting families is part of what Reps. Candelora and Scanlon have been working on as they've served together the House Public Health Committee. Candelora had high praise for Scanlon, who represents a portion of Branford and all of Guilford, for his work at the state level to promote legislation addressing the state’s growing opiate and heroin abuse problem. It includes a passage of a bill into law in 2016 which, among other specifics, gives families access to Narcan in pharmacies, puts stringent limits on the number of prescription opioids issued for routine medical procedures such as wisdom teeth removal.

Candelora said the state’s legalization of medical marijuana is helping to create a perception that all marijuana is medicinal, and that concerns him. He said recreational marijuana, which many experts feel is a gateway drug leading to harder drugs such as heroin, is far different from marijuana that’s being researched and used for medicinal purposes.

“We’re finding (street) marijuana is much more dangerous; much of it is synthetically and genetically altered,” said Candelora. “The next session, we’re going to hear a lot of about the legalization of marijuana (and) I am going to continue to oppose it.”

Candelora said states such as Colorado, which legalized recreational marijuana, are showing “...the negatives have been far greater” than “any tax revenue” generated.

Scanlon noted overdoses in Connecticut in 2015 killed more people than car accidents.

“Last year, 723 people died in Connecticut from overdoses related to heroin or opioids, and we’re on course this year to hit 888,” said Scanlon. “When we talk about why this is happening, the [Centers for Disease Control] said four in five heroin [users] begin with prescription drugs; and 50 percent get those innocently from a family member or a friend. So it begins with prescription drugs. We felt as legislators, we’d start tackling it from there.”

Among other attributes, the new law limits the flow of drugs, requires doctors to check a data base for multiple prescriptions issued to the same user, and puts Narcan in pharmacies for access by families with a member in immediate danger of an overdose.

“The summer of last year, my next door neighbor actually died of a heroin overdose,” said Scanlon. “This year, we became second state in country to limit prescriptions to seven days for acute pain; so if a young person gets some wisdom teeth out they won’t get 50 pills; [and] if they are still in pain, they can go back to get more. It also exempts people with chronic illness or terminal pain. It’s a very common sense approach to a very big problem. I feel it’s going to make a difference by attacking the root cause of this problem.”

Dr. Nolfo agreed, saying a federal act in 1992 created a push for doctors to recognize and treat pain.

“The consequence of that act (is) the overprescribing of opiates,” said Nolfo, adding, right now, "...you could probably walk into your neighbor’s homes (and) find some opiates. That’s how overprescribed opiates are. These medicines pile up and they stay there. And kids get into them. That’s what happens.”

He added it’s important to recognize the impact of opiates on the brain and to know that there are those who have a predisposition to becoming addicted. He shared the story of a now 29 year-old male who was a high school football player in another town, at a time when the team was elite.

“He claimed almost everybody on that team smoked marijuana and was high during football games. Then, there came a time, in his junior and senior year, when opiates started to make their way into their parties,” said Nolfo. “It’s easy to say maybe this kid comes from a broken home or has problems – please don’t leave here thinking that.”

Nolfo said one problem facing pediatricians is that, while young patients may confidentially discuss having used marijuana or alcohol, they don’t feel comfortable talking about opiates.

“In 20 years of practice maybe one has admitted to trying opiates,” said Nolfo. “You know that’s not an accurate number [it’s] because of the stigma attached to opiates. So that’s the battle – [a patient] not saying ‘I tried Percocets and I can’t get off of them.’ We have to have a greater index of suspicion so we can possibly pick up on patients who are having problems with opiate addiction.”

Scanlon said residents can help by participating in National Drug Take Back Days in local communities (unused prescriptions disposed of safely at police departments, no questions asked) and said another common sense approach is to “...make sure we’re educating parents and students about the dangers of these drugs,” as well as to “...remove the stigma, because people are afraid to talk about this addiction.”