LIGHT & HOPE
NJ Statehouse candlelight vigil remembers victims of fatal drug overdoses, looks to help those struggling with addiction >>
TRENTON >> Former “Melrose Place” actress Amy Locane, a convicted drunken driver, on Tuesday acknowledged the deadly consequences of her June 2010 conduct.
“My addiction killed someone,” Locane said Tuesday evening during a candlelight vigil in front of the New Jersey Statehouse Annex, “and that is a very difficult thing to think about.”
Locane, 46, was boozed up when she caused the two-vehicle crash that killed 60-year-old Helene Seeman in Somerset County over eight years ago. The incident occurred in Montgomery Township on June 27, 2010, resulting in the actress being found guilty of vehicular homicide and sentenced to three years of incarceration.
The Trenton-born Locane said it “seems so unreal to me” that she could “stoop that low” to become an alcoholic responsible for a traffic fatality. She thanked City of Angels for raising awareness to the “ugly stigma of addiction.”
City of Angels is a community-based, all-volunteer, peer-to-peer nonprofit organization that is committed to helping people who suffer from the disease of alcohol or drug addiction. Former Hamilton councilman Kevin Meara, whose son Kevin Caley “KC” Meara died in 2008 from an accidental heroin overdose, founded City of Angels and played an important role in organizing Tuesday’s third-annual Statehouse Candlelight Vigil.
New data released last month by the National Center for Health Statistics show there were 70,237 drug overdose deaths in the United States last year — the deadliest year on record, easily surpassing the 63,632 drug overdose deaths that occurred in the United States in 2016.
“Opioid addiction is a completely treatable illness,” Dr. James Baird, a Jefferson Health physician, said at Tuesday’s vigil. Dealing with the deadly impact of substance abuse from a medical perspective, “It’s tiring work,” Baird said, “praying and hoping to see an end in sight.”
Retired community police Sgt. Danielle LoRusso of the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office and her brother Rich, a recovering drug addict, spoke at Tuesday’s vigil, as well as recovery coach Michelle Perez of City of Angels.
“When he was at rock bottom in his addiction, “I didn’t think I mattered to anybody,” LoRusso’s brother said, “I definitely didn’t matter to myself.”
Making the critical choice to seek help, “I live a positive life today,” he added. “I have two years, seven months and seven days in recovery, and I feel so great.”
Former Republican Gov. Chris Christie first hosted a candlelight vigil in front of the New Jersey Statehouse two years ago to remember those who have lost their battle against addiction. About 80 people attended Tuesday’s vigil, much smaller than the first annual event under Christie’s leadership that attracted hundreds into the City of Trenton.
With U.S. drug overdose deaths reaching an all-time high in 2017, “It is really disheartening to see this sharp increase in overdose deaths,” Dr. Indra Cidambi said Tuesday in a press statement. “Oftentimes my patients are not even aware that the heroin or pills that they buy on the street is laced with fentanyl, which can be anywhere between 50 and hundred times more potent than heroin.”
Cidambi is the medical director and founder of the New Jersey-based Center for Network Therapy. “Just as treatment options are expanding with wider acceptance of medication assisted treatment and the introduction of the ambulatory detoxification modality of care,” she said, “fentanyl denies patients a chance to access treatment.”