State Sen. Schwank holds public drug forum
Expert panelists focus on progress, treatment
State Sen. Judy Schwank hosted a community forum focusing on drug addiction and treatment at Brandywine Heights Area High School on Thursday, Dec. 3.
A panel of experts tackled the key problems of heroin and prescription drug addictions. The panelists included Pennsylvania Physician General Rachel Levine, Detective Pasquale Leporace of the Berks District Attorney’s office, and Drs. Charles Barbera and William Santoro of Reading Health System.
The forum was a follow up to the April 1, 2014 meeting, when the Brandywine and Kutztown schools districts lost five recent graduates to drug overdoses. Schwank noted that at the time, residents believed drug addiction was an urban, not a rural problem.
“Most of the parents that were there were so unaware of what drug addiction was,” Schwank said.
Since then, the Kutztown Are School District has responded with its Kutztown Strong initiative and Brandywine with a substance abuse task force.
“I commend t hese school districts for taking the problem head on and dealing with it,” Schwank said.
According to Levine, Governor Tom Wolf signed a letter in September allowing school districts to carry naloxone, which helps reverse overdose of opioids like heroin.
Schwank is looking to conduct a study on assessing drug addiction treatment. The state also has a prescription drug registry in place, which will go into effect one the state passes a budget.
In addition, Act 139 of 2014 made “good Samaritan” reporting to emergency services possible without penalty. But according to Schwank, the drug problem persists.
Leporace noted that the number of heroin overdose deaths increased since 2010. The number dropped from 29 in 2014 to 25 in 2015, but this year also included two overdoses from a new offender: methamphetamines.
The panel took questions from the audience and in turn learned about some of the difficult efforts to overcome addiction.
Stephanie Horonzy of Blandon was one who has experienced the effects of addiction. Her daughter’s ex-boyfriend is currently in a Berks County pilot program for recovery after becoming addicted to methamphetamine and going to jail. When the child was two, he approached Horonzy, saying his father was being abusive and was addicted to drugs. Horonzy is afraid that her daughter’s three-year- old child could be at risk for addiction, too.
Barbera and Santoro emphasized that genetics could play a part in drug addiction.
“That’s your task and
your daughter’s task: to make sure that we create the environment and the education for your [grandchild] to know these are the risks,” Barbera told Horonzy.
Levine highlighted that environment can play a role, too, especially with prescription medications.
“Anyone in this room can get addicted to those medications,” Levine said. “Almost anybody is susceptible depending on which medicine they take and how long they take it.”
Levine also encouraged the audience to clean out medicine cabinets and discard them at drop- off locations. Various police departments across Berks County have medication drop- boxes with collections twice a year.
Schwank asked the panel how people could work with insurance companies when drug addiction treatment has no set time frame.
Santoro said that medication-assisted treatment may not be for everybody, and people could be
using the treatment for varying amounts of time. For example, he says an 18 year old addicted for just six months should not have medication-assisted treatment but rather the 12-step program.
Santoro also discussed the need to have more drug treatment statistics to analyze which options are working. Statistics on the 12- step program are limited due to the anonymity of Alcohol-
“Most of the parents that were there were so unaware of what drug addiction was.” — State Sen. Judy Schwank
ics Anonymous. While he agrees that names should remain anonymous, he sees the need for numbers.
“We need to find out what programs work best and we need to emulate them,” Santoro said.