Mass. Roundtable Discusses Opioid Addiction Crisis

Nov. 11--IPSWICH -- There is clearly an opioid-abuse epidemic in Massachusetts, and law enforcement and legislators are trying to address the problem. That much was evident from the opioid roundtable hosted in Ipswich Tuesday night by state Rep. Brad Hill and the Ipswich Police Department.

It had been billed as an opportunity for the Ipswich and Hamilton communities to discuss the opiate-abuse problem in their neighborhoods. Hill kicked things off by providing statistics to prove how bad things have gotten in Ipswich and in the state in the last three or four years -- for example, in 2014 there was 146 heroin related deaths in Essex County alone and more than 1,000 throughout the state. Ipswich itself has had eight deaths in the past three years.

"It's become such a problem that the state considers it a public health crisis, and any successful response involves engaging all sectors of the community in a unifying fashion," said Hill.

Hill introduced Fernando Perfas, the assistant director of the prevention unit of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Bureau of Substance Abuse Services, who said he hoped people came away from the discussion with a sense of hope. He talked about the effort to increase access to the drug Narcan, about the various programs that have been launched for educating people, treating people and coping.

One such program is Learn to Cope, which organizes weekly meetings -- in various places including Salem and Ipswich -- for those affected by opiate addiction to share their stories with people who can understand their experience.

Perfas also mentioned a state initiative launched last Wednesday, "State Against Stigma," which aims to eradicate the negative stigma around drug addiction and addicts that can sometimes prevent people from seeking treatment.

After Ipswich Police Chief Nikas discussed the department's effort to combat the crisis, police presented a PowerPoint presentation on the basics of opiates, and Hamilton Police Chief Russell Stevens discussed one particularly dangerous opiate, fentanyl, the capstone of the event began: community members with first-hand addiction experience shared their stories.

Katherine Carlsen, who lives in Andover now but is returning to her former town of Ipswich in a month, told the audience that her 19-year-old son James died of a heroin overdose on June 29 of this year.

She said James was a typical, good, fun-loving kid who just before his death was active in his interests of archery, diving, guitar, and eagerly waiting to see Jurassic World.

She said his issues began more than two years ago, when he was prescribed oxycodone after having his wisdom teeth extracted. By that time the family had moved to Andover; his friends there convinced him one day to try heroin -- and that was the end.

"He had an addictive personality already; his dad had alcohol issues; it was in his genes, so he was high-risk before he took this road," said Carlsen. "James took to heroin like a baby to candy."

At first she didn't notice. Eventually, he sat her down and told her and they sought treatment. Following a five-day program, he was sober for seven months but then fell back into it. At some point Carlsen spent 10 days making a total of 88 calls to McLean Hospital's treatment center trying to get James a bed, but there were none available and the hospital didn't know how much she had tried. They had one available two weeks after James died, alone in his room, said Carlsen.

"I lost a part of my heart and soul, but we can't allow one more person to be cast aside or forgotten, we need to save this generation," said Carlsen. "We need to fight the dealers, fight the ignorance, fight for our kids lives, demand, be firm with doctors and hospitals and therapists, because we're talking about our children, the loves of our lives... please fight for them to save each other."

Then Jared Clark, 33, a longtime Ipswich resident, spoke about his own journey as an addict.

He said that despite having a good family, good education, being an athlete and excelling at other things, he still got into drugs and alcohol abuse, and only he could make himself better because he had to be ready and want it for himself.

Clark said he became an addict while attending Merrimack College in 2000. His issues got him kicked out and he transferred to Framingham State, where he returned to a basketball career that kept him off drugs for a time. But when he graduated in 2005, he got back into drugs. In 2007 he finally decided to get sober because he realized how powerless he was and didn't want to be a 50- or 60-year-old man, looking for a young drug dealer on the corner.

"That hopelessness, with realizing you're screwed was really the biggest gift ever, because of that I was willing to listen and follow directions."

Clark's mother Cheryl talked about how his problem became the family's problem, hurting Cheryl's relationship not only with him, but also with her husband and her daughter, Jared's younger sister. He took them on a roller-coaster, she said, until one day she and her husband told Jared he could not be part of their lives.

"We had to make the decision to get off the roller-coaster because one of us would go down, or four of us," said Cheryl. "It was the hardest thing we ever did."

But in 2007, Clark got sober through a program in Texas and he has been sober ever since, allowing his family, who'd done their own healing through the Learn to Cope program in Salem, to heal and become closer than ever.

After the Clarks told their story, the audience was allowed to come up and share their own stories, comments, ask questions. People mentioned wanting better treatment centers, more money for prevention and treatment programs, wanting suboxone not to be used in treatment, and other issues.

The son of the owners of Conley's Drug Store mentioned how people could get Narcan.

Brad Hill and Chief Nikas wrapped things up with the message that there is hope and help for people in the community, urging people to remember what they learned and take advantage of the resources that exist. Hill also said it won't be the last time the community comes together to discuss the crisis that is opiate addiction.

Copyright 2015 - The Salem News, Beverly, Mass.