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Light Rain Mobilizing the Five Towns communities against drugs
Connecting the contemporary use of opiates to a quick recap of drug history in the past 50 years, David Hymowitz presented Nassau County’s Department of Human Services 265th Narcan training session in five years to roughly 80 people at the Marion & Aaron Gural JCC in Cedarhurst on Aug. 13.
It was the second element in a concerted effort by the Gural JCC and several other Five Towns organizations and institutions, including synagogues, to create an ad hoc educational program on drugs to increase awareness of the problem. The first was a panel discussion attended by nearly 530 people at Congregation Beth Sholom in Lawrence on July 16.
Rabbi Yaakov Trump, an assistant rabbi at Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst, helped coordinate the July gathering. “I think that, unfortunately Narcan training is needed and so is much more awareness,” Trump said. “The impact is that people are talking, and we have to start mobilizing.”
Hymowitz, the Department of Human Services/* director of education, noted that the county program has trained more than 11,500 people in that five-year span. He said that the opiate epidemic is everywhere, but has hit two specific demographic groups hard for different reasons.
Young people between 18 and 25, mostly white, mostly middle class and mostly men are the first group. Citing a brief drug history, Hymowitz said that in the 1960s and ‘70s, heroin was very popular. Then in the 1990s and 2000s cocaine and crack became the drug of choice as people had a fear of using needles to inject heroin because of the AIDS epidemic.
Then heroin made a return. It was now 40 percent pure, Hymowitz said, compared to the 10 percent of the earlier decades. Now it could be ingested by snorting or smoking it, creating a new popularity.
The second group at-risk for opioid addiction is seniors. Using prescribed drugs for pain management. “The average 10-year-old has seen 10,000 commercials that tells you you can take a pill for a pain,” Hymowitz said, explaining our drug culture.
He also noted that medicine cabinets are not locked. Scams exist for people to get into homes such as people who attend open houses or get a general contractor’s license. Hymowitz pointed out that a bathroom is the one room in the house where a person can close the door.
From 2000 to 2015, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that six out of 10 drug overdoses in the United States involved an opioid such as heroin and Oxycodone. Now the even more lethal fentanyl and carfentanil, synthetic opioids, are available.
Narcan is an “opiate antagonist” Hymowitz said, as he explained how it is used, the progressions of an overdose — look for no response to stimulation and very shallow breathing — and then how to inject Narcan (through the nostrils). He also advises calling 911. Many members of the Five Towns noted they would call Hatzalah, the volunteer ambulance corps.
In addition to the knowledge dispensed by Hymowitz, attendees received Narcan kits and a blue certificate card.
Hewlett resident Pam Bluth said that before the training she did not know how to respond to an overdose and will now help to educate others. “I work in a school setting, so I certainly will share with my colleagues,” she said.
