Baldwin residents receive Narcan training in prevention seminar

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Local lawmakers hosted a free Heroin Overdose Prevention Seminar on Aug. 15 at the Baldwin Public Library. Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, State Assemblyman Brian Curran (R-Lynbrook) and State Sen. Michael Venditto (R-Massapequa) appeared at the event, held in partnership with the Nassau County Office of Mental Health and Chemical Dependency and the Mental Health Association of Nassau County, to prepare people to help in the midst of an opioid crisis.

“Through education, awareness enforcement and treatment, my administration and the Heroin Prevention Task Force are diligently combating heroin and opioid abuse throughout Nassau,” Mangano said. “These free Heroin Overdose Prevention seminars have helped residents save lives and keep families whole.”

Residents gathered in the library’s public meeting room to be trained in the use of naloxone, an opiate antidote more commonly known as Narcan. The treatment, in the form of a nasal spray, reverses the effects of substances such as heroin, Vicodin, codeine and morphine for 30 to 90 minutes.

Eden Laikin, Nassau County’s director of governmental research, said that 210 people in the county died of overdoses of heroin or prescription painkillers in 2015. Trainees from this program have saved hundreds of people who have overdosed, Laikin said.

She also lauded Vivitrol as one of the best antidotes for preventing relapses. “Vivitrol is all about overdose prevention,” she said. “They’re the only FDA-approved medication that’s indicated for relapse prevention to opioid dependence.”

Overdose prevention seminars for those 18 and older have been held in Nassau County since 2012. At least 37 trainees have reported using what they learned at the seminar — by way of the Narcan kit given to them in the program — to bring someone who has overdosed back to consciousness and save their life.

State Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Beach) was a co-sponsor of the seminar, and told the audience why he believes this issue is an important one for communities in Nassau County to address. “I’ve talked to too many parents in the short time that I’ve been in government who have lost children, and once you have one of those conversations, it changes you,” Kaminsky said. “We all need to come together to fight this. Whether it’s our religious communities, whether it’s our civic associations, our schools, our governments — we all have to work together to solve this.”

For David Hymowitz, the director of program development at the Mental Health Association of Nassau County, it all comes down to raising awareness. “The root of any good health is awareness,” Hymowitz said. “There’s a lot of myths out there about mental health and substances, so our whole program is about educating people on all of those things.”

Thanks to a state law passed in 2006, citizens are allowed to administer Narcan to overdose victims. Several organizations around the county hold prevention seminars.

“People come here, they tell their friends about it and it just grows,” Hymowitz said. “We have a lot of programs. All they need to do is contact us through our awareness campaign. We talk to young people, families and anybody else. We have programs that are designed for certain things, and then we can create a program based on what the community needs.”

Hymowitz said that 7,000 people have received Narcan training through this program in the last four years, and by the end of 2016, he expects that number to reach 8,000.

“These seminars help save lives and keep awareness of this deadly plague on our society on the forefront of priorities,” Curran said. “Heroin kills, and these seminars are vital in our communities.”

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