AN ISSUE FOR EVERYONE
Green Island forum focuses on heroin addiction
The Heatly School gymnasium was filled with community members, elected officials and first responders Wednesday night as they came together for a heroin awareness town hall meeting.
The village co-hosted the event with Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple, with Apple recently deciding to do two-hour long awareness meetings in different communities around the county and beyond.
Apple says the county has already confirmed 25 fatal overdoses this year, with at least 65 more waiting for toxicology reports.
“We’ve done maybe three of four of these so far and I really don’t have a definitive number. I think we’re going to CBA next and we’re going to continue to go around,” Apple said. “People sometimes say ‘don’t you feel like a broken record’? Well no, not really because I know I am going to touch 40 to 50 more people tonight here and those 50 people can go out and tell even more people about awareness for heroin.”
Mayor Ellen McNulty-Ryan thought it would be a good idea to have Apple host this awareness meeting in the village, since village police officers already had an incident when authorities were exposed to heroin after someone was using the drug in a bathroom at a Dunkin Donuts.
Alan Shepard was arrested in December 2016 for allegedly leaving heroin and fentanyl in the Green Island Dunkin Donuts bath-
room. Two officers inhaled it and were sent to the hospital.
“It’s important on so many different levels,” McNulty-Ryan said. “It’s important for everyone to understand how big this epidemic is, but it’s also important to get training for how to keep our first responders and our police officers safe. We had our Chief and another officer get taken out in an ambulance when they were on a call. It’s important for parents to bring their kids tonight, but it’s also important for kids to bring their parents because there are children whose parents have addictions.”
Green Island School District Superintendent Teresa Snyder agreed with McNulty-Ryan, saying that she does see students in her district traumatized because of their parents or family members being addicted to heroin.
Apple believes “we’ve lost that war on drugs” and that law enforcement can’t just arrest their way out of this epidemic.
“Law enforcement can only do so much. Narcan can only do so much. It really is going to take that entire community effort to fight this battle and to have some great partners out there,” said Apple.
Apple has been hosting these town hall meeting’s along with officials from the Addictions Care Center of Albany, Inc., Albany Medical Center Hospital, Catholic Charities and CVS Pharmacy.