Tag-team community plan against drugs
The Town of Hawkesbury and other Eastern Ontario communities are taking a proactive response to rising public concerns about the latest fatalities reported about young people using drugs like fentanyl.
Mayor Jeanne Charlebois announced, during the April 12 committee of the whole session of counties council, about a drug information forum planned for May 4 at the Robert Hartley Arena, with parents and youth of Hawkesbury invited to attend. “It will be a good event,” Charlebois said. The OPP, the Eastern Ontario Health Unit (EOHU), district school boards and municipalities, with support from other community agencies and service clubs, are taking the lead on organizing a series of drug awareness and information gatherings, during May, with two separate sessions scheduled for each evening’s event. One session will be for Francophones and the other session for Anglophones.
“We are planning seven (events) in all of Eastern Ontario,” said Robyn Hurtubise, EOHU program manager for injury and substance misuse, during a later phone interview.
The first session scheduled is May 1 at Glengarry District High School. The second will be in Hawkesbury and the calendar schedule for the other five are on the EOHU website at www.eohu.ca.
Plans for the forum series began earlier Ottawa concerning youths dying or being hospitalized due to overdose incidents involving fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opiode drug prescribed for pain treatment. The EOHU began receiving requests from district school boards for help in telling both, parents and students, about the danger of fentanyl, which has become the latest “fad” in the recreational drug scene.
The EOHU also received calls from other groups about the issue and began making contacts with police, school boards, and others to organize the information forum series. The format for each evening’s event will feature guest speakers talking about the risks of substance use and abuse, including alcohol and the more common drugs like marijuana and cocaine, and include information about the current “drug fads” like fentanyl and oxycontin. There will also be a general question period at the end of each session.
Hurtubise emphasized that the goal of the forum is to provide information that parents and young people can use to understand the problem of substance use and abuse. Police departments monitor local drug scenes to note any changes in what is available or becoming popular. The focus for the forums is to make the general public, including young people, aware of the risk attached to street drugs, with emphasis on the dangers of “fad” drugs, because there is no guarantee about their origin or quality.
“We are being proactive here,” she said, adding that fentanyl use for now is limited to the larger urban centres. “Our current statistics indicate that this is not an issue here (Eastern Ontario region). Getting that conversation started between parents and youth is what’s important.”
For Russell Township, The Nation Municipality, and Village of Casselman areas, the scheduled dates are May 11 at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic High School in the Village of Russell in Russell Township, and May 31 at Ecole secondaire de Casselman in the Village of Casselman.