PUBLIC FORUM: CHEMUNG COUNTY PANEL DISCUSSION ON ELMIRA'S HEROIN EPIDEMIC

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION AND Q&A PAGE 87 10 11 12 ---oOo--- 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 1 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you. 2 Can everybody hear me okay? 3 Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 4 New York State Senate Joint Task Force on Heroin and 5 Opioid Addictions. 6 The Chairman of this Senate Committee is 7 Senator Phil Boyle from Long Island. He, 8 unfortunately, is unable to be with us today. 9 We've had close to 20 of these forums across 10 the state already, and he had a commitment in his 11 district he had to be at. 12 We will be joined in a few minutes by 13 Senator Mike Nozzolio, who is my colleague just to 14 the north of my district. He has the northern part 15 of the Finger Lakes, while I have the southern part 16 of the Finger Lakes and the Southern Tier. 17 And it's a pleasure to get this forum on this 18 very important topic, and this critical issue across 19 our communities; urban, suburban, and rural. 20 It is not missing any aspect of our life here 21 in the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes, as well as 22 the larger cities in New York. 23 It's a devastating problem that we're seeing, 24 which is why we saw the need to have these forums 25 across the state, to look for ways from -- to build 1 awareness of the issue, which I think we've been 2 doing very effectively, particularly with the media 3 coverage that we have got across the state with 4 these, to bring the attention to this matter; to 5 talk about prevention, talk about treatment and 6 recovery, talk about law-enforcement issues, and 7 what tools we might be able to do to better provide 8 law enforcement to go after the dealers, in 9 particular, on these issues, and to work with our 10 treatment providers on some of the barriers that we 11 have from insurance, to cost, to be able to make 12 these services available to those who are addicted 13 to it. 14 So it's -- I will just kick it off with that. 15 We're going to go around and introduce 16 everybody around the table here. 17 If you could just, please, we'll go in order. 18 I'll give Phil and -- 19 Assemblyman Phil Palmesano and 20 Assemblyman Chris Friend, a chance to do some 21 introductory remarks here, and then we'll go around 22 and introduce everybody. 23 I want to thank Elmira College, 24 President Ron Champagne who's in the back here, with 25 Mike Rogers [ph.] with him. 1 This beautiful facility that we have here, 2 and they so often open their doors to us to have 3 these community forums. 4 And, really, there's not much more of an 5 impressive facility in all of my district to be able 6 to host something like this. 7 It always reminds me of Harry Potter and 8 Hogwarts. 9 [Laughter.] 10 SENATOR O'MARA: But I haven't seen any fly 11 through here in all the forums we've done here. 12 But, good morning, and thank you for being 13 here. 14 I'll start it out with 15 Assemblyman Chris Friend, who represents 16 Chemung County and Tioga County and part of 17 Broome County. 18 ASSEMBLYMAN FRIEND: Thank you, Senator. 19 I'd like to thank Senator O'Mara and 20 Senator Nozzolio for putting this panel together, 21 and for traveling across this state and taking input 22 to see where this epidemic is occurring, why it's 23 occurring, and how we can best use the State 24 resources to combat the problem and help out all of 25 our state agencies and local partners to take care 1 of this issue. 2 So I'm looking forward to hearing your 3 comments today, and hope we can have some productive 4 conversations. 5 Thank you. 6 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you, Chris. 7 Assemblyman Palmesano. 8 ASSEMBLYMAN PALMESANO: Good morning. 9 Thank you, Senator O'Mara. 10 And, again, to Senator O'Mara, 11 Senator Nozzolio, and Senator Boyle, for having 12 these hearings around the state. 13 And thank you to all of you for taking time 14 out of your busy schedule to be here, to share your 15 expertise, your stories, on an issue, and an 16 epidemic, that's a major problem for our region and 17 our state. 18 So I'm looking forward to hearing your 19 opinions, your thoughts, and things we can do better 20 at the State to help give you the tools and 21 resources you need to address this major problem 22 facing our state. 23 SENATOR O'MARA: Thanks, Phil. 24 And if we could just go around, at least the 25 table here. 1 We'll start with you, Jim; and just introduce 2 yourself and where you're from, and we'll just go 3 around the horn. 4 JIM MULCAHY: Jim Mulcahy. I work for 5 Arbor Housing and Development at our Maple Leaf 6 community residence in Hornell, New York. 7 DEBBIE McCORMICK: Hi, I'm 8 Debbie McCormick, and I'm representing 9 Arbor Development as a participant. 10 DA BROOKS BAKER: I'm Brooks Baker, 11 Steuben County District Attorney. 12 CHIEF ADA JOHN R. THWEATT: And I'm 13 John Thweatt, the Chief Assistant District Attorney 14 for Chemung County. I prosecute most of the 15 felony-level drug crimes in the county. 16 SHERIFF WILLIAM YESSMAN, JR.: Bill Yessman, 17 Schuyler County Sheriff. 18 JOHN McNELIS: John McNelis, Canisteo Police 19 Department. I'm the SRO at their local district. 20 JIM RITTER: Jim Ritter from the County 21 Sheriff's Office, SRO to EFA. 22 CHRISTIE SPECIALE: Christie Speciale, the 23 executive director at Tioga County Council on 24 Alcoholism and Substance Abuse. 25 FRANK BOURKE, Ph.D.: Dr. Frank Bourke, 1 executive director of The Research and Recognition 2 Project in Corning. 3 HELEN KAPLAN: Helen Kaplan, LCSWR, from 4 Alcohol and Drug Council of Tompkins County. 5 JULIE CHARLANOW: Julie Charlanow, director 6 of treatment and prevention services at Trinity of 7 Chemung County. 8 WENDY DRESSER-RECKTENWALD: I'm 9 Wendy Recktenwald. I'm the director of human 10 resources at Alfred State College. 11 I'm also the director of the CASAC program, 12 where we teach drug and alcohol counselors. 13 And, I am also an outpatient therapist at 14 MATCH. 15 HOLLIE HALL: Hollie Hall, senior director at 16 Alfred State Health and Wellness Services. 17 MIKE BALLARD: Mike Ballard. I'm with the 18 Council on Alcoholism. I am the 19 environmental-prevention specialist there. 20 LAUREL HEADWELL: Laurel Headwell, Alcohol 21 and Drug Education Coordinator in Yates County, for 22 the Council on Alcoholism and Addictions for the 23 Finger Lakes. 24 SARAH SALISBURY: Sarah Salisbury. I'm a 25 clinical program director at Tioga County Mental 1 Hygiene. 2 SUSAN HEWITT: I'm Susan Hewitt, supervisor 3 at Tioga County Alcohol and Drug Services. 4 CAPTAIN JOSEPH KANE: Captain Joseph Kane 5 with the Elmira Police Department, currently 6 assigned to the detective bureau. 7 And for four years, I was assigned as the 8 commander of the drug enforcement unit. 9 CHRIS: Chris. I'm a recovering heroin 10 addict. 11 WILLIAM RUSEN: I'm Bill Rusen. I'm the CEO 12 of Cayuga Addiction Recovery Services located in 13 Ithaca, New York. 14 SENATOR O'MARA: All right, well, thank you 15 all for being here. 16 As you can tell, I think, going around here, 17 the little closer you are to the microphone, maybe 18 the little louder it is, so don't hesitate to pull 19 it and drag it towards you when you want to address 20 the forum. 21 I think the way we'll start out here this 22 morning, is we want to hear a personal story from 23 Chris, here, a recovering addict, to tell a little 24 bit about where he got to where he is today, and 25 what his direction is. 1 So, Chris, we very much appreciate you 2 sharing your personal story with us. 3 CHRIS: Thank you, Senator. 4 Hello, everyone. 5 Thank you for having me, letting me share. 6 It's a great honor. 7 I've been in recovery for almost a year now. 8 I just want to speak about what heroin has 9 done to my life in its use. 10 It really changes the person you are, the 11 person you think you are; your mind, everything 12 about you. 13 It changed me completely. 14 I -- it basically threw all my morals and 15 values away. Anything that I believed in, I didn't 16 believe in it no more. My compassion, my care for 17 other people went away. 18 It basically turned me into an evil person. 19 I was willing to commit crimes, go to any length to 20 get my next fix, my next use. 21 Uhm, and the hard part about it is, when it 22 gets out of control like that, I have to resort to 23 crime to support myself. I would have no job. 24 I'd be in the midst, I'd be sick at friends' 25 houses, on the streets. I'd break into cars and 1 sleep in the cars at night, you know, just to have a 2 place to live, because it would get so serious that 3 I would be hurting my family. I would stealing from 4 my family, stealing money. So they don't want me 5 around, and I would use it to support my addiction. 6 And it's a really hard thing to come to terms 7 with that, which is why I'm so grateful to be in 8 recovery. 9 I feel like heroin personally gave me the 10 tools to ruin every relationship I've ever been in 11 with anybody, including family. 12 And recovery is helping me gain these tools 13 back, which is what I love so much about recovery. 14 If it wasn't for CARS (Cayuga Addiction 15 Recovery Services) and The Matrix Program, 16 I wouldn't have control of my life. I wouldn't be 17 here today. I'd be on the streets of any given 18 county -- any given county in New York, wreaking 19 havoc on the community, because that's how I grew 20 up, that's what I knew, being involved with 21 addiction and heroin and opiates. 22 Like I said earlier, it just completely 23 changes who I am and my way of thinking. 24 Being sober today, I'm happy that I can 25 communicate with people, I can have relationships, 1 and I can express what this addiction does to my 2 mind as a person, and how I go from being somebody 3 good to I feel like I'm somebody evil, and I feel 4 like I'm not a part of the community. 5 But now, today, it's different, and it's the 6 opposite. And I feel great. 7 And I'm very thankful to be here. 8 Thank you for letting me share my thoughts on 9 heroin. 10 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you, Chris, for 11 sharing that. 12 And Chris's story is so similar to so many 13 stories we've heard from these forums across the 14 state, from individuals that have been willing to 15 step up and talk about it personally, and the impact 16 it's had on their lives. 17 Chris, I'd like to ask you a question or two, 18 and if you could explain just how accessible heroin 19 is in our communities. The difficulties, if any, 20 you have in finding it, and what the cost is. 21 CHRIS: The accessibility is not a problem 22 when you have the money. And usually, for me, it 23 was resorting to crime. 24 It just seems like today you can -- in any 25 populated area, you can walk down the street, past a 1 bar, and you can tell who the people are that do it. 2 You know, most of them, they're nodding out. They 3 look like they're half asleep. They're sick. And 4 those are the people that you confront. 5 And, for me, I could just go up to these 6 people and ask them, and there's a good chance that 7 they'll be, like, Hey, and I know where to find it. 8 It's all just a matter of just asking, it 9 seems like. It's like asking a simple favor. 10 And -- what was the other question? 11 SENATOR O'MARA: Cost. 12 CHRIS: Cost. 13 Cost, it can vary. 14 Heavy populated areas, cities, it's very 15 cheap to get. You -- typical drug dealers like to 16 sell bags at certain amounts, like, 5, 10, 15, 17 20 dollars, like that. 18 So whatever you have in your pocket, these 19 drug dealers are so greedy for the money, that 20 they'll take anything you have. You don't -- it 21 doesn't even have to be money. 22 For me, when I was in my criminal ways, 23 stealing, it was all a matter of even just asking 24 for an item. "What do you want and I'll steal it 25 for you" type of deal. 1 So accessibility was never a problem. It's 2 everywhere. 3 SENATOR O'MARA: What have you found, 4 difficulty-wise, as part of the recovery process, 5 and any difficulties in accessing the treatment? 6 I mean, obviously, I think, first, you've got 7 to come to the realization that you want to make a 8 change for yourself. 9 But then what do you find -- what have you 10 found, in your, you know, going through the process 11 of getting to the right contacts and the right 12 services to help you with -- through this process? 13 CHRIS: For me on that aspect, New York State 14 Parole was a great reference for me. 15 I did get caught up in my addiction pretty 16 bad, and I had gone to prison. And, uhm, as a 17 matter of getting out of prison and continue to 18 violate parole, they noticed that I had a problem. 19 And, it was just as simple as saying, "I have 20 a problem and I need help." And they were willing 21 to really go through the research for me, and as to 22 how I found CARS. And the judge let me get involved 23 with it. 24 And it was so welcoming. They just took me 25 right on, CARS. 1 Any rehabilitation service I had talked to, 2 even like sitting in jail, like, it's so welcoming, 3 they make you feel welcome. And they give you the 4 great story of how you can get better. 5 And at the time, being sick, it's not 6 believable. 7 But once I got into the process, I was more 8 open to it. I was willing to open up and speak; and 9 I have to speak from my heart to get my message 10 across. 11 And the treatment that I've been going 12 through, it's just been so welcoming and so great. 13 And I'm so grateful for the life that I have because 14 of it. 15 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you. 16 Well, again, thank you sharing with us. 17 Bill, you're here with Chris today. 18 If you'd like to talk a little bit about the 19 Cayuga Addiction Recovery Services (CARS), and what 20 issues you see in, really, access to treatment for 21 the addicts? 22 WILLIAM RUSEN: Sure. 23 Well, first, again, I want to thank 24 everybody, the Task Force and all the hosts here, 25 for offering this opportunity. I'm really grateful 1 for it; so, thank you. 2 I'm also really grateful for Chris. 3 Chris and I drove down today, and believe it 4 or not, we had a very extensive conversation about 5 Joseph Campbell's "The Hero's Journey" and "The Hero 6 With A Thousand Faces." 7 And I think that's one of the things I always 8 find, the more time I spend with men and women in 9 recovery, is that once things start to clear up, 10 these are your sons and your nephews and your 11 brothers and your fathers, and all those people. 12 That's exactly who they are. 13 And sometimes it's safe and pleasant to 14 think, Well, that doesn't happen here, and that's 15 not in my family, and I don't have to worry about 16 that. 17 And that helps us in some -- sometimes, a 18 defensive way, to feel like, Well, that could never 19 happen to me, and that couldn't be my son or my 20 brother or anybody else. 21 And that's just not true. 22 One of the biggest changes I've seen over the 23 last year or so, is I have never gotten, ever, 24 gotten as many phone calls from men who -- and young 25 men, like Chris, who I -- I had three calls in the 1 last two weeks, of a young fellow who knew me 2 from -- I do some programming in our residential 3 program. We do a group on the seven habits of 4 highly effective people -- who called me up, a young 5 fellow named, we'll call him "Steve," and he said, 6 "Bill," he said, "I'm a mess. I'm really doing bad. 7 I need" -- 8 And until the heroin epidemic really hit, 9 I never got phone calls like that. 10 And people were -- obviously, had their 11 challenges, and were going up and down and having 12 relapses. But there's something really different 13 about this that makes the addicted men -- and 14 I always connect with men, and I assume that's 15 because of -- you know, that, my gray hair, and my 16 two boys are 35 years old, so -- but they always 17 connect with me. 18 I've never had those phone calls before this 19 started about a year or so ago. 20 It's just stunning to me, to have an addicted 21 man who's using, young man, call you up and say, 22 "Hey, man, I'm a mess. I got to get in someplace. 23 I got to get help because this is not working 24 anymore." 25 So, I just wanted to share that personal 1 part. 2 So, again, I want to thank everyone here for 3 giving me the opportunity to speak. 4 I just want to offer something. 5 I've been doing this kind of work for 6 35 years in four different states, from Pennsylvania 7 to Washington to New Hampshire to here. 8 And I haven't just done substance-abuse work. 9 I've worked in mental and primary health care. 10 So, I've helped a lot of people access a lot 11 of services in a lot of different places, so I think 12 I'm pretty sure I know an epidemic when I see it. 13 And I thought the Task Force use of that word 14 was not in anyway, hyperbole. I thought it was 15 really appropriate to use that word. 16 We run an intensive residential rehab 17 program, a 6-month program, basically, where we have 18 53 hours a week of programming. And that serves 19 25 counties that stretch from Rochester to the 20 Pennsylvania border, to Utica, to, like, out in 21 Jamestown. 22 And so I think we can make some pretty fair 23 judgments about what Upstate New York looks like. 24 And if you could look at the statistics that 25 happened between 2007 and 2012 that we looked at, 1 you would be stunned how, in such a compressed 2 period of time, you could have such a transformation 3 in the demographic group of people you're serving. 4 And the biggest one I'll share with you is, 5 in 2007, 13 percent of the people who came into our 6 residential program were -- their primary addiction 7 was to heroin or opiates. 8 Okay? So I want you to keep that in mind, 9 "13 percent." 10 In 2012, 5 years later -- 11 And all of you, to the sociologists, because 12 we're in a college here, right, you know if any 13 phenomena happens in a compressed period of time, 14 that's a significant issue. 15 -- in 5 years, it went to 48 percent. 16 So imagine what that does to a system, when 17 you start to think about that. 18 The answer I think is self-evident. 19 I just want you to know, the other people I'm 20 here to speak for -- and Chris did a really good job 21 of speaking for himself, and, in a sense, for others 22 in recovery, so I'm going to speak for the people 23 that aren't here, or to some -- I shouldn't say, 24 that there are people here that are actually doing 25 the work. 1 The system and the good, hard-working people 2 who believe in transformation rehabilitation stand 3 almost, literally, in the breach. 4 I always think of the corps of trees at 5 Gettysburg, and how close we came to the -- to 6 Pickett's Charge succeeding. And it was only 7 because of a couple dedicated men who refused to 8 give up in the breach. 9 And that's what the people who do this work 10 are like, as wave after wave of this epidemic throws 11 itself upon the meager fortifications that 12 dedication, knowledge, experience, and, yes, even 13 love, have built up over the years. 14 However, those meager defenses, which never 15 were stout, nor, never were robust, cannot hold up 16 against the kind of epidemic and the kind of assault 17 that occurs to this care system that is built to do 18 the work that it's presently trying to do. 19 And I just want you to know that there are 20 times that we are -- that the -- we recognize our 21 fortifications are inadequate, and we are 22 overwhelmed by the cunning, vicious, and patient foe 23 we now face; and that's heroin. 24 So, you know, I think it was Teddy Roosevelt 25 said, you know: If you have a problem and you don't 1 offer any solutions, well, then all you're doing is 2 whining. 3 And I don't want to whine. 4 So, here's two big things I'd like somebody 5 to consider, to look at: 6 First is the issue of access to care. 7 Treatment services must be sanctioned by 8 OASAS and Medicaid to be allowed to be delivered 9 outside of OASAS-licensed facilities. 10 Presently, the only way we can get paid, or 11 even count the services, that's amazing. 12 If we do a service outside of a 13 OASAS-licensed facility, not only do we not get paid 14 for it, according to the State of New York, it 15 didn't happen, it didn't count, in terms of our 16 activity. 17 This one change would allow treatment 18 services to spread and proliferate into counties and 19 out of buildings to places where the clients and the 20 need is. This would be a worthwhile, far-reaching 21 effort that can fundamentally change 22 substance-use-disorder work, and change it from a 23 marginal service to a mainstream one that is much 24 more easily integrated into overall patient care and 25 well-being. 1 Sub suggestion: Suboxone treatment must be 2 made more widely available. 3 It appears obvious that this form of 4 chemotherapy is a long-term rather than a short-term 5 intervention, that perhaps can be best be thought of 6 in a similar way to the long use -- long-term use of 7 modern antidepressants rather than a short-term 8 intervention, such as a two-week course of 9 antibiotics. 10 The present limitations have resulted in long 11 waits and very limited opportunities throughout the 12 central -- throughout central New York and the 13 Southern Tier. 14 And these stories have appeared in the 15 Syracuse paper, and the significant challenges in 16 that way. 17 The second recommendation I would ask for 18 consideration, is to build a foundation and 19 much-needed infrastructure within the 20 substance-use-disorder care system itself. 21 The average age of a credentialed alcoholism- 22 and substance-abuse counselor in New York State is 23 55 years old. 24 So you know we're in a -- we have a group of 25 people that are going to age out, and there's nobody 1 taking their place. 2 The field desperately needs an infusion of 3 energy and talent by motivated individuals ready to 4 do the work of transformation. 5 I believe this is very doable, given that 6 this credential was designed to allow the 7 non-traditional paraprofessional to become the 8 nontraditional professional. 9 This field will appeal not only to the young 10 person, but also those in mid career who are 11 considering a change. 12 I believe this offers many opportunities to 13 many segments of the state's workforce. 14 Resource enhancement to build skills and 15 capital, both financial and human, of organizations' 16 individuals that work within them to deal with the 17 demands of this epidemic. 18 For example, a focus on the role of trauma, 19 and what it might -- what it may be -- what -- it -- 20 it may be its key role in causing and exacerbating 21 both the onset and treatment-resistant nature of 22 addiction, in general; and heroin addiction, in 23 particular. 24 And, finally, I would ask that, although good 25 work continues in this area, to break down the 1 silos, once and for all, between the Offices of 2 Mental Health and the Offices of Alcoholism and 3 Substance Abuse, because I think there's a great 4 deal of benefit to be done in that way. 5 And my hope is that the resources and 6 expertise can be respected and augmented so that 7 much-needed synergy can build while, improving the 8 care of our clients, and unleashing the potential of 9 our staff in the improvement of treatment and 10 clinical outcomes that will benefit our families and 11 communities. 12 So, again, thank you for the opportunity to 13 speak. 14 And, uhm -- thank you. 15 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you, Bill. 16 And thank you for those -- some of 17 statistics. 18 You know, as I see the heroin epidemic that 19 we have right now, it seems to me, even though I was 20 quite young in the early '60s and early '70s, 21 the heroin epidemic of today seems to be much larger 22 and more pervasive than the drug problems we had in 23 that, really, I guess what is considered kind of our 24 "Hippie Era," and drugs being used during that late 25 Vietnam Era, and that. 1 But, you know, a couple thing jumped to mind 2 when you mentioned the stats of the last five years, 3 and the issues that you're seeing, growing from 4 17 percent of your case load, to 48 percent, in 5 5 years. 6 You know, back in the early '70s, 7 New York State enacted what was called the 8 "Rockefeller drug laws," and that cracked down a lot 9 on the major drug activity that was going on during 10 those times. 11 And now when you mention, 5 years, and great 12 increase you've seen, I have to look and say that, 13 in 2009, the New York State Legislature and the 14 governor enacted so-called "Rockefeller drug-law 15 reforms" that substantially retracted from the 16 criminal penalties for drug dealing, drug 17 possession. 18 And we've seen that just in this short time, 19 these five years. And I think that that has 20 something to do with it, and that we -- basically, 21 drug dealers, who we really should be targeting with 22 our criminal prosecutions, should be harshly treated 23 within our criminal justice system. 24 Another aspect that I think that has helped 25 influence this growth in heroin, is some legislation 1 that has worked in New York State, but I think it's 2 helping to contribute to the heroin epidemic; and 3 that's the I-STOP program that was enacted just 4 two years ago, which required the tracking of 5 prescriptions by physicians and pharmacists to 6 opioid-based painkillers. 7 And there was -- I think, it was either the 8 last year or the year before, there was 22 million 9 prescriptions for painkillers in New York State. 10 Now, we only have a population of about 11 19 million people. 12 That's pretty outstanding. 13 Now what has happened with I-STOP, and, 14 actually, we did some legislation that was 15 effective, it cracked down on these prescriptions 16 being issued, and doctor shopping by the patients, 17 and getting multiple prescriptions and selling those 18 opioid drugs on the street. 19 Now it has taken those individuals that were 20 addicted to those painkillers and forced them to 21 find other alternatives, which turns out to be 22 cheaper, and I think just as prevalent, in heroin. 23 And that's part of the reason for the growth 24 and the epidemic that we have today. 25 So if we could turn it a little bit to the 1 enforcement, the criminal aspects of this, and then 2 we'll get back to the addiction-recovery services. 3 And that if we can open it up to our 4 district attorneys that are here, to our 5 law-enforcement sheriffs that are here. 6 And we have been joined, since we started, by 7 Undersheriff Jim Allard from Steuben County. 8 Thank you being here, Undersheriff. 9 And I don't know if anybody wants to 10 volunteer to kick it off on this kind of focus? 11 DA BROOKS BAKER: Senator, I would be happy 12 to start. 13 One, I want to thank you and the Assemblymen 14 for being here today. 15 I think recognizing this as an epidemic is 16 truly accurate. 17 I don't have the same level of stats that 18 Mr. Rusen does, but I have a very scary stat from 19 Steuben County; that in the last 12 months we've 20 lost 10 people to drug overdoses. People from 21 6 months old -- I'm sorry, 6 hours old, to 48 years; 22 people who should be alive but for heroin, opiates, 23 and bath salts. 24 And in that same time frame, we've had one 25 murder and we've had one vehicular homicide. 1 That, to me, bespeaks what the most dangerous 2 thing in our county is right now, and that's drugs. 3 We have worked hard to deal with drunk 4 drivers, and that's how we end up with one vehicular 5 homicide. That person's in prison and is going to 6 stay there for a very long time. 7 The murder -- the people facing the murder 8 charges are in jail, pending trial in October. 9 They're looking at 25 years to life. 10 The people who sold the drugs, gave the 11 drugs, provided the drugs, for those 10 people that 12 died, cannot be prosecuted under New York State law. 13 There's nothing can I do with them, and 14 that's a very frustrating thing for us. 15 I don't understand how and why we face a 16 situation, where, if you drink and you drive and you 17 kill someone, you commit manslaughter, and, the 18 state prison system keeps you in for the maximum 19 time frame. 20 Where, if you sell drugs and the person dies, 21 you can't be prosecuted for manslaughter. 22 If you are prosecuted, the state system 23 pushes you out as fast as humanly possible. 24 It doesn't make sense. 25 I think you hit the nail on the head with the 1 Rockefeller reform situation. 2 You know, five years ago, there was a 3 prediction made by district attorneys -- 4 District Attorney Fazzary is here -- by members like 5 yourself, who understood the realities of drug 6 sales, that if we do this; if we reform our drug 7 laws, and within five years we're going to have an 8 epidemic because our dealers will be back on the 9 street and we will emasculate our ability to 10 prosecute those folks. 11 And that's come true. 12 It's not -- unfortunately, we're not in a 13 situation where "I told you so" works. Now we have 14 to do something about it. 15 And, you know, there are different things we 16 can do. 17 From a prevention point of view, there's not 18 much we can do in law enforcement, except, stop 19 people from selling drugs. And that means 20 increasing penalties. Give us a statute to punish 21 people for killing people by selling drugs. 22 Fund our drug courts. That's the one thing 23 we can do, so we can help folks like Chris. 24 There are people out there who commit crimes 25 because they're addicted to drugs. 1 And our drug-court programs are fantastic. 2 Those were started seven or eight years ago. 3 They were a tough sell for prosecutors, but, quite 4 frankly, I'm sold; they work. 5 However, in the last couple years, Albany has 6 seen fit to defund those. 7 We've lost our coordinators. We lost one of 8 our drug-court participants in the city of Corning 9 to a heroin overdose not a month ago. 10 If we'd had the level of supervision we used 11 to have, we might not have lost him. 12 So that's another reality, is, even some of 13 the good programs we have that can help people 14 aren't being funded the way they should. 15 So I guess that's where I would start. 16 But I thank you for recognizing the problem, 17 and I hope you can help us put the teeth back in, 18 and also help the folks that we've created a system 19 designed to help. 20 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you, Brooks. 21 Anyone else want to add on to that from the 22 law-enforcement perspective? 23 I will note that we have been joined by 24 Joe Fazzary, the Schuyler County DA. 25 And a couple of rows back from him, 1 Weeden Wetmore, the Chemung County 2 District Attorney. 3 Thank you for being here, Weeden. 4 Bill? 5 SHERIFF WILLIAM YESSMAN, JR.: Thanks, 6 Senator. 7 And thanks, Chris, for sharing your story 8 with us. 9 This is a problem that goes beyond just drug 10 possession, drug use, drug sales. It's filling up 11 our jails with other crimes; burglary, robberies, 12 larcenies, assaults. 13 You know, you read in the paper every day 14 these shootings that are taking place. 15 Yesterday I Googled just "heroin arrests," 16 just to see what I got. And I had, like, five in 17 our region in the last three weeks that were major 18 arrests involving heroin. 19 And, you know, a couple years ago, if you saw 20 heroin, it was, like, Wow! 21 I mean, it's not impacting us in 22 Schuyler County greatly right now. We haven't seen 23 a lot of it, but we know the people from our county 24 are going into Ithaca, they've going -- coming down 25 to Elmira, they're going down into Corning, other 1 areas, to get the heroin and use it. 2 The Drug-Back days, we're -- Take-Back days 3 we're doing with the DEA. We have a permanent 4 collection box in our lobby for prescription 5 medications, and that fills up every two weeks. And 6 it's a large mailbox. 7 That's helped cut down on our 8 prescription-drug abuse we've seen, but, this is 9 filling up our addiction-counseling agencies, our 10 rehabs. There's waiting lists to get in. 11 I see this from our people. 12 We're also seeing, where people are being 13 sentenced to, you know, three to five years, they're 14 back out in the street in six to eight months. 15 They're going into drug treatment, and they're right 16 back out on the street again. 17 And, you know, I don't think they're 18 necessarily dealing with their issues like they 19 should be. You can't cure someone in six months. 20 So, this is the things we're dealing with. 21 We just had a local young woman in our county 22 overdose down here in Elmira, and she's fighting for 23 her life right now because of this problem. 24 So it's something that we have address. 25 You know, we're -- my 30 years in 1 law enforcement, we're seeing now where we're 2 outfitting our officers with Narcan to help fight 3 overdoses. 4 I've never seen law enforcement have to take 5 this approach, to where we have to, you know, supply 6 and train our officers to fight drug overdoses. 7 And, you know, our thing is to save lives, 8 and that's what we're doing. We're working with the 9 Attorney General's Office right now to outfit my 10 staff with Narcan, so they have it. 11 But I want to thank you for the opportunity 12 to speak. 13 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you, Bill. 14 Thank you, Bill. 15 And the Narcan, we'll get into that a little 16 bit further. 17 We had hoped today, to have part of our forum 18 be a Narcan training session, and have some kits 19 available, but due to some of the programs at the 20 State right now, we weren't able to get ahold of any 21 Narcan kits because they're moving out the door and 22 they are being distributed. 23 And, you know, everybody that's -- that I've 24 talked to about the Narcan kits, it's just -- it's 25 like a miracle when it's utilized. 1 But it is important that we get those into 2 hands of law enforcement, into the hands of our 3 first responders -- our EMTs, our ambulances, our 4 fire departments -- who are first on the scene, 5 because that drug, really, for a pretty low cost, is 6 clearly saving lives. 7 But, we need to follow up after we save that 8 life to make sure that they're not going to need 9 Narcan again. 10 I think there was an article I read just last 11 week, or maybe it was this week, an individual that 12 had been revived by Narcan, I think, three or 13 four times. It's just -- it's incredible. 14 And that -- that -- that, I think, sets a 15 tone pretty clear on just how powerful that 16 addiction is; that you're going to be revived, and 17 then go back and do it again. 18 We've been joined by Senator Mike Nozzolio, 19 who is a Co-Chairman of this Task Force going around 20 the state. 21 Mike, thank you for coming down today to be 22 with us. And, we've had a productive conversation 23 so far. 24 So, thank you. 25 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: And if I could just say, 1 thank you, Senator O'Mara, for setting up this 2 forum. That this is a series of forums across the 3 state. 4 Senator O'Mara's been a participant, an 5 active participant, in those forums. 6 I thank Assemblyman Palmesano and 7 Assemblyman Friend for being with us. 8 That, Narcan, at one of our prior hearings 9 and forums in the upstate area, I -- we asked a 10 first responder how many times they had administered 11 Narcan, and he said, "four." 12 And I said, "Well, over what period of time 13 was that?" 14 And he said, "Within the last month." 15 And that just -- Sheriff, that just gives 16 kind of the scope of the problem upstate; not just 17 downstate. 18 Thank you, Senator O'Mara, for setting up 19 this forum. 20 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you. 21 John McNelis. Attention! 22 [Laughter.] 23 SENATOR O'MARA: I'd like to get your 24 perspective, as a School Resource Officer, and what 25 you're seeing in our schools. Maybe recommendations 1 on what we can do on awareness and prevention 2 activities with our youth, to, hopefully, avoid 3 getting involved in this in the first place. 4 JOHN McNELIS: Yeah, I think that's a key 5 component, is prevention. 6 And the irony, is that it requires, you know, 7 money and resources. 8 But on the flip side -- 9 SENATOR O'MARA: Pull the mic just a little 10 bit closer. 11 JOHN McNELIS: That requires money and 12 resources, you know, for the schools. But, you 13 know, the flip side of that is, obviously, it will 14 pay off exponentially down the road in terms of 15 money and resources. 16 You know, one of the things I think the 17 schools would like to see is more -- you know, when 18 you face these budgetary constraints, you know, one 19 of the first things you cut is nonessential 20 services, and sometimes guidance counselors and 21 stuff like that are becoming nonessential. 22 And, you know, again, the irony there is, 23 when you face a complex problem like this, they 24 become more essential. 25 And that's where we should be. You know, 1 those resources can really help. You know, 2 social workers, more guidance counselors, because, 3 you know, obviously, the addictive nature of some of 4 these drugs we didn't see 25, 30 years ago, the 5 variety of some of these drugs, and it complicates 6 the problem, and it requires more complicated 7 solutions. 8 And, you know, like I said before, the irony 9 of that is, you need more. Where we should be 10 adding, we're cutting. 11 And I think if we add more, obviously, we're 12 going to -- it will pay off down the line. 13 I mean, one example in the Hornell area is, 14 unfortunately, we lost, you know, the psych unit at 15 St. James. 16 And, you know, that -- the ramifications of 17 that there, you know, obviously, more -- you know, 18 more pressure on law enforcement, prosecutors. 19 And, I mean, even right down to the 20 fire department, you know, the fire department is 21 now transporting patients 40, 50, 60 miles, to see 22 if they can -- you know, just to see if they can be 23 evaluated and admitted. 24 So it's kind of a vicious cycle. 25 And, you know, obviously, all the people 1 here, like I say, I think if we can throw a little 2 bit more time and money and resources, it's going to 3 pay off exponentially down the road. 4 SENATOR O'MARA: I think you make a great 5 point with the psych unit at St. James closing down, 6 and the limited number of psych beds or psychiatric 7 mental-health facilities that we have here, which 8 was certainly a major issue that we've dealt with 9 over the last year here with the threatened closure 10 of the inpatient beds at the Elmira Psychiatric 11 Center. 12 And I think there's, at least from my 13 research, a strong relationship between 14 mental-health issues and addictions and drug use. 15 So, maybe we can spin it back over to the 16 other side of the table now, to our treatment 17 providers that are here, to talk about what you're 18 seeing in your communities. 19 You know, if John is seeing this in 20 Canisteo-Greenwood, not exactly the urban center of 21 New York State, it's clear that it's everywhere. 22 So, if anybody over here on this side want to 23 get the discussion started on the treatment aspects, 24 access, the process involved in it? 25 I know we've talked in the past a lot about 1 insurance issues, and concerns with lack of access 2 because of insurance rejections, and the treatment 3 process, in general. 4 Don't be shy. 5 Bill, yeah, you can go. 6 WILLIAM RUSEN: I think one of the main 7 challenges for the substance-use-disorder treatment 8 system is every other health system, which is, as 9 people transfer into Medicaid managed care, which is 10 going to look a lot more like talking to an 11 insurance company, what we always say at CARS is 12 this: 13 If an insurance company authorizes, let's say 14 20 visits, and you get to the 19th visit and you'd 15 like to have a few more, you call the insurance 16 company and say, I'd like to have a few more visits. 17 And all they have to do to win the game is 18 not return the call, because the default is, the 19 answer is no, until you get a yes. 20 So, you know, we've had -- I mean, the number 21 of people, just in the last five years, you know, 22 support-service people, and their time that we've 23 had to direct at just getting a yes, and getting a 24 return phone call, has significantly increased. 25 Now -- and, again, remember, we exist in this 1 sort of pie, if you think of our budget as a pie, 2 and the more you take up with support services, that 3 doesn't mean you get an extra pie. 4 And, so, the amount you have left over for 5 other things, like, you know, salaries and treatment 6 and charity care, goes down. 7 So I think this is going to be a big 8 challenge as we move forward, and more and more of 9 our services look like talking to the typical 10 insurance company versus what was a more easily 11 accessed system that we had been using with 12 Medicaid. 13 So, I just wanted to -- that's my commentary 14 about insurance. 15 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you, Bill. 16 Yes. 17 HELEN KAPLAN: To add to what Bill said, one 18 of the things that we're seeing in Tompkins County, 19 and I'm sure it's true in other counties, as well, 20 is that when you're trying to get somebody inpatient 21 and they have insurance, like Medicaid, they have to 22 fail repeatedly; meaning, not succeed, not keep 23 sober, repeatedly, before their insurance will pay 24 for them to go to a 24-hour facility, a 28-day 25 program. 1 So the ramifications of a person failing 2 repeatedly before they get the care that's needed 3 have ripple effects on the whole community, in the 4 form of crime, in the form of homelessness, you 5 know, in the form of all kinds of problems, at -- 6 both, at the clinic, and I'm sure at the police 7 level, we see. 8 And that's a problem, to make a person have 9 to fail so many times before they get the care they 10 need. 11 JULIE CHARLANOW: And I know this has already 12 been touched on, I just want to stress the 13 importance, and I'm sure you've heard it all 14 throughout the state, the issue with not having 15 enough doctors able to provide and prescribe 16 medication-assisted treatments, like Suboxone. 17 We have one doctor, our medical director in 18 our facility, which is a very large outpatient 19 substance-abuse clinic here in Elmira. 20 On any given day, we have approximately 350, 21 360 active clients in our programs. 22 The last check, which is pretty consistent 23 across all three of our clinics here in Elmira, and 24 two of our offices in Livingston County, roughly, 25 14 to 15 percent of our clients have a primary 1 opiate addiction. 2 So, with only one doctor able to prescribe, 3 you know, a limited amount of Suboxone, we are in a 4 bind of having to choose who we're able to put into 5 our Suboxone programs. 6 So, having more, having more of that resource 7 available, would certainly help keep people in the 8 outpatient setting, too. 9 We're at a -- you know, at a crossroads, 10 where we can't get people into inpatient residential 11 settings as much as we would like to, so we're 12 trying harder to make them succeed, help them 13 succeed, in the outpatient setting, but we have 14 limited resources there, as well. 15 So, I'm sure you've heard it everywhere else, 16 but, it is, it's truly a very big issue. 17 SENATOR O'MARA: We have heard it other 18 places, but it's critically important that we 19 continue to hear it, and that certainly helps us do 20 the job that we need to do, as legislators, to focus 21 programs in the right direction. 22 And that -- and to -- certainly, it helps 23 continuing to bang the drum on public awareness and 24 just the extent of the issues that we're dealing 25 with. 1 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: If I may add, that 2 Senator O'Mara probably said this already, but the 3 focus of the Task Force is to look at prevention, 4 treatment, and then, of course, prosecution; and 5 look at the three equally. And that those 6 three series of issues are going to be the key to 7 stopping this problem. 8 One of the issues we've been dealing with is 9 how, adding insult to injury, our Medicaid dollars 10 are actually being stolen from us by the 11 organized-crime elements of our society; paying 12 individuals in homeless shelters to give their 13 Medicaid card away, sell it away for $20, and then 14 have that card be used for phoney prescriptions for 15 Oxycontin, at a $30-per-pill street value. 16 And two cases in New York City alone, that 17 we've been privy to, resulted in a billion dollars, 18 "a billion dollars," worth of illegal obtaining the 19 medicine, and, in effect, obtaining it, insult to 20 injury, with taxpayers' dollars. 21 One of the issues the Task Force is dealing 22 with, is trying to figure out if we should change 23 the percentages of seizure. 24 Right now, the law-enforcement agency that 25 has the responsibility for seizure of illicit-drug 1 trade, in effect, keeps a portion of that. 2 A portion goes to treatment at the OASAS 3 level, or funding to OASAS at the state level. 4 And, then, a portion of it goes to the 5 Attorney General, whether or not the 6 Attorney General is involved in the case or not. 7 We're looking at changing that, and 8 increasing the treatment dollar. 9 What is law enforcement and treatments' 10 opinion of that potential change? 11 SHERIFF WILLIAM YESSMAN, JR.: I think it 12 would help. 13 You know, the problem is, we have to get to 14 the underlying factor, and that's the addiction. 15 And, you know, because, without doing that, our 16 business increases in law enforcement. 17 If we can get to these people and deal with 18 their issues on that level, I think it would help 19 immensely with our issues. 20 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Treatment side? 21 CAPTAIN JOSEPH KANE: If I can go back to the 22 law-enforcement side of this, I did four years in 23 the drug-enforcement unit, and when I first started 24 that unit, even four years ago, heroin wasn't the 25 issues that it is; and heroin, opiates, that entire 1 category. 2 Just since I left in November, we've seen 3 prices just cut in half, which is putting more 4 product out to users. 5 The issue is, it's not a police problem. 6 Statistics show that people who end up in 7 jail come out and they're not cured. It's not a 8 cure; jail's not a cure. 9 But I'm not saying we should back off the 10 people who are selling. 11 But from a user standpoint, the people who 12 are locked up, such as Chris, for stealing, you 13 know, phones, money, it's a community issue for each 14 and every one of us, if we have not already been 15 affected by it. 16 A few things: 17 Many people have prescription medications in 18 their medicine cabinets. They end up in kids' 19 hands, or who knows whose hands. Each of those 20 events tends to -- it has more of an effect on 21 somebody who is a user, and it creates users. 22 The -- back when -- in November, when we were 23 buying heroin, we could buy 10 bags of heroin. It's 24 called "a bundle." And we were -- the best price 25 that we could get when we were buying it was $170. 1 I just saw in the last two weeks that they 2 bought 10 bags of heroin for 75. So that's even 3 greater than a 50 percent reduction in cost, and 4 it's just flooding -- flooding our society with 5 heroin. 6 When we dealt with CIs before, the 7 "confidential informants," before this heroin came 8 to the scale it is now, we didn't always worry that 9 our confidential informants weren't going to be 10 around. 11 Now it's a huge concern. 12 We often have to -- you know, we work with 13 somebody, and from a law enforcement, we don't 14 always offer that treatment, but, in my opinion, 15 it's a treatment issue. 16 Again, jail doesn't cure people from 17 addiction. It can keep you away from it for some 18 time, but statistics show that people who are 19 released from, you know, a short jail stay are going 20 right back to the issue. 21 Again, as a community, people who are leaving 22 cars unlocked, or even pills within cars, we have 23 people going around, nearly nightly, going into 24 vehicles, taking whatever that they can, whether 25 it's money, electronics equipment, and/or pills. 1 If somebody leaves the pills, you're just 2 asking for to be the victim of a crime. 3 We need to get rid of those. 4 We just had a conversation in our department 5 this morning about what we can do take those back, 6 the opiates that are, you know, all the pain pills 7 that are, out in our community, because, again, they 8 will end up in the wrong hands. 9 As long as we have users, we're going have 10 dealers. 11 I think it's, again, a treatment issue. 12 I don't think -- you know, locking up the 13 dealers, we're going have another dealer that comes. 14 Back some time ago, when we had -- when I was 15 involved in the narcotics, we would purchase a 16 bag -- a single bag of heroin in the city of Elmira 17 for 20 to 25 dollars. But in, say, Harrisburg, 18 Philadelphia, they were going for $6 a bag. In 19 New York City it was about $7 a bag. 20 So the markup was huge in our area. 21 We -- I spoke with a member of the 22 Watkins Glen community, and they were getting, like, 23 $35 a bag. 24 So, the dealers are making a fortune of off 25 this. 1 And, again, like somebody said earlier, they 2 will take orders. If somebody wants a TV, they'll 3 go steal a TV, and then end up with product. 4 Narcan, I think we see that as an issue with 5 somebody who overdoses. And that's not the only 6 issue we're going to deal with, as far as the police 7 or anybody else in our community. 8 Somebody is going to come running to a police 9 officer with a 2-year-old child who has accidentally 10 ingested pills from a medicine cabinet that is just, 11 basically, sitting around. 12 And those are the people that we may leave 13 out sometimes. 14 We're looking at the person who has an 15 addiction that's actually using, but there's other 16 people that are affected in each and every one of 17 our families. 18 A couple examples of people who I've seen: 19 When somebody comes to us and has been 20 arrested, one of the first questions I always ask 21 was, "How did you get injured?" because there was 22 usually a story behind it. 23 We've dealt with somebody, a member of our 24 military, jumped out of an airplane, parachuting, as 25 part of his military duty. Injured his back, ends 1 up a pain medication; subsequently, heroin, and he 2 died of an overdose, I think, two months ago. 3 Another example: We had a female who was a 4 Division 1 track star and athlete, and she had a 5 knee injury, ACL/MCL. 6 She ends up -- her coach, obviously, wants 7 her to perform. Provides her these, you know, Oxy 8 opiate pain pills. She ends up addicted, and now 9 she's in our system, and just recently got arrested. 10 So, it's good people who are addicted to 11 heroin, and I think we need to focus on the 12 treatment side of it. 13 And I think that's a great idea, with the 14 money that we sometimes take in, that we may focus 15 on jails, that we look toward a treatment side. 16 ASSEMBLYMAN PALMESANO: Captain, and 17 Mr. District Attorney, are you sending any of these, 18 who have broken the law because of drugs, otherwise 19 would not have broken the law, are any being 20 sentenced to Willard? 21 DA BROOKS BAKER: Yes. We use Willard a lot. 22 You know, in our office the process is, and 23 we utilize our drug-court people for this a lot, and 24 drug and alcohol evaluations during the presentence 25 process, to make these determinations. 1 And, so, there are two sets of people. 2 There are sets -- there are people who commit 3 crimes that are drug crimes. People who sell drugs, 4 but are not addicted to drugs; 5 And there are those folks who commit crimes 6 because they are addicted to drugs. 7 We try to treat those folks very differently. 8 Willard is a great avenue for those folks who 9 commit crimes because they're addicted to drugs, and 10 we use that. 11 We also use our drug courts a lot for that. 12 I just wanted to touch on the funding thing 13 very briefly. 14 Increasing the percentage that would go to 15 OASAS would be a fantastic thing. 16 I think, right now, about 30 cents on every 17 dollar goes directly to OASAS out of our 18 forfeitures. 19 The problem is, in rural counties, our 20 forfeiture numbers are small. I would bet that, 21 probably, are 30 percent. And we aggressively 22 pursue forfeiture in Steuben County, the 23 drug-seizure money. 24 Probably, that 30 percent every year might 25 fund 1 or 2 people for a 28-day stay in an inpatient 1 program. That's not going to be enough to move the 2 ball to handle treatment. 3 I think there is an example of a program that 4 was started right here by Senator Smith, in 5 Chemung County, that dealt with prosecution, 6 education, treatment, and prevention, the Stop DWI 7 program, where the offender pays a price. 8 There is no minimum fine for drug offenses 9 right now. 10 In the DWI world, you -- you impose a minimum 11 fine. That fine goes right back into prosecution, 12 treatment, and enforcement. 13 That kind of a model could really help us and 14 not put this burden back on the taxpayer. 15 SENATOR O'MARA: How do you deal, Brooks -- 16 I think most individuals, when they get addicted, 17 they lose their job, they lose their family, they 18 lose any means of support. 19 How are you going to impose fines on those 20 individuals, I guess? 21 DA BROOKS BAKER: Again, that's always going 22 to be in the discretion of when to impose a fine. 23 There is no minimum fine required. 24 Now, a lot of people who are drunk-drivers 25 have those same realities, and they pay their fines. 1 That's a price of being involved in another 2 addictive substance and putting the community at 3 risk. 4 That may just be a price associated with it. 5 However, a lot of folks who are involved in 6 drug crimes are not addicts. There are a lot of 7 people involved in drug crimes who are simply 8 sellers, and those folks could certainly foot that 9 bill. 10 CHRISTIE SPECIALE: Can I touch on the 11 prevention piece of this aspect? 12 SENATOR O'MARA: Yes. 13 CHRISTIE SPECIALE: We're all here because 14 there is obviously a problem, and we're dealing with 15 it the best that we can. 16 But, on a prevention standpoint, you know, 17 these -- this costs our nation over $600 billion a 18 year, and, what are we doing to prevent this? 19 You know, I have a staff of three that covers 20 Tioga County, and it's very difficult to do the work 21 that we do to provide our evidence-based programs 22 that are shown to decrease this behavior. 23 It's among the most, you know, high -- the 24 most costly health problem in the United States. 25 And, you know, investing in prevention is, 1 definitely, it makes great economic sense. 2 According to a new study conducted by 3 Washington State University: Communities will reap 4 substantial savings by using effective drug-abuse 5 violence-prevention programs. 6 Among the most dramatic findings was one that 7 they used, a program that we use, called 8 "Life Skills." And it produced a $50 benefit for 9 every $1 invested into these prevention programs. 10 You know, and our funding just continuously 11 gets cut. 12 And we have studies that are showing that, 13 for every $50 invested into this, it's -- or every, 14 I'm sorry, $50 produced every, you know, dollar is 15 invested as the outcome with this. 16 So prevention programs are definitely, 17 I think, a must in our communities. 18 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you. 19 LAUREL HEADWELL: I'd like to comment on that 20 also. 21 Sorry. 22 I work for the Council on Alcoholism and 23 Addictions for Yates County in the Finger Lakes, and 24 I'm their education coordinator for Yates County. 25 And I'm finding that I'm needed in a lot more 1 schools than doing prevention counseling, but, the 2 funding isn't there, also. 3 I work with the risk and at-risk youth for 4 providing the life skills, as she talked about, 5 anger management, parenting programs; however, 6 they're not being covered, they're not being there 7 enough, because there's just a lack of funding. 8 We just lost some of our funding, and 9 eliminating a peer-prevention program. 10 So, that would be nice to have more funding 11 to get those types of programs back into the 12 community. 13 Also, mandating programs, we're finding that 14 a lot of people are being pushed towards coming to 15 us, but then they can decide and say, "No, I don't 16 want to come visit you. I don't want to do this 17 anymore," so they leave; or they don't have to 18 fulfill those requirements. 19 We have a program for -- it's called 20 "AD PEP" [ph.]. It's a drug- and alcohol-awareness 21 program. It's a 3-session, 6-hour program. 22 I just had one, actually, last night, and 23 it's where they're mandated to come. They have to 24 serve that time, and then they leave, and, 25 hopefully, learn from what we have tried to prevent 1 them and give them the information on. 2 Another thing is, going into colleges and 3 doing a drug training for RAs and RDs, 4 presenting the colleges with what issues they might 5 be seeing or coming in contact with. 6 I mean, I know it's a critical problem. 7 I go into Cayuga College and do training 8 sometimes for their RAs and RDs, but there could 9 always be more. 10 So, that would be great if we could get more 11 funding in that sense. 12 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you. 13 SARAH SALISBURY: Senator, I just wanted to 14 speak, too. 15 I'm from Owego. We're Tioga County Alcohol 16 and Drug Services. We're locate between Binghamton 17 and Elmira. 18 And, I hear the term "treatment issue" coming 19 up a lot. And, you know, the thought that comes to 20 mind for me is that addiction recovery really isn't 21 time-limited. 22 You know, you spoke about, uhm, maybe having 23 to use the Narcan three, four, five times on 24 one individual, and, you know, recovery can take 25 one, two, three, or ten times for any individual. 1 So, you know, what I found to be successful 2 is working with law enforcement, drug courts, and 3 having probation involved, parole, that mandates 4 patients to stay in treatment, because that's one of 5 the big barriers we run into, is keeping them in the 6 clinic. Or, you know, they decide to max out their 7 time in the jail so that they don't have to come 8 back to treatment and talk about, you know, those 9 uncomfortable things that they don't want to talk 10 about. 11 Some of the other barriers we've already 12 touched on today are, obviously, the authorizations, 13 the insurance. 14 We're getting so many denials, and, you know, 15 we've got people that are withdrawing, you know, 16 right in our offices, and, you know, detoxing. 17 And we've got an insurance company on the 18 phone, saying: Well, you know, they're not detoxing 19 enough. 20 You know, not really sure how much worse it 21 could get at that point for them. 22 The other thing is lack of bed availability 23 and, you know, crisis centers. You know, safe 24 places for them to go while they're waiting for an 25 inpatient bed. 1 You know, obviously, they can come to 2 outpatient treatment in the interim, but, you know, 3 where are they going when they go home at night, you 4 know? Right back to that environment. 5 So we're left wondering if they'll even show 6 back up the next day, and hoping for that. 7 And then adolescents is a whole nother 8 problem altogether, because you can't send an 9 adolescent to detox. We have to, you know, tell the 10 parent to take them to an emergency room, and, 11 hopefully, they will follow through on that. 12 But, there's not really a lot of places for 13 them to go, in general. 14 SENATOR O'MARA: What do -- can anybody speak 15 to the Southern Tier, the southern Finger Lakes 16 region, as to -- as what's available for detox 17 centers? 18 SARAH SALISBURY: The Addictions Crisis 19 Center is in Binghamton, but I don't think that they 20 have that many beds. And, you know, they'll keep 21 them for 14 days. 22 But that's about it, in the Binghamton area. 23 SENATOR O'MARA: And the next closest to 24 Elmira, does anybody know where that would be? 25 MIKE BALLARD: I think Schuyler -- I work in 1 Schuyler County some of the time. I think a lot of 2 times when they see problems there, they -- we 3 contact FLACRA, but I think the crisis center is in 4 Clifton Springs. So, I think that was, you know, 5 one of our only choices to send people to. 6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: How about Dick Van Dyke? 7 MIKE BALLARD: We do utilize Dick Van Dyke 8 sometimes. I think the choices there are a little 9 bit limited there sometimes, from our standpoint. 10 I don't know -- our educators, more or less, 11 contact the people. I don't work directly with 12 those people. 13 But, yeah, I think it's an option, but not a 14 well-utilized one. 15 HELEN KAPLAN: And you should know that, in 16 Ithaca, we don't have a crisis or detox center, so 17 we send our people to Elmira, and all the other 18 counties, and Medicaid has to foot the bill on 19 transporting them long distances. 20 And as one of my fellow panel members has 21 alluded to, it's difficult to get that person to the 22 facility when they're living, many of them, in 23 county-subsidized drug houses. 24 So that's something I think is really 25 important to touch upon today, is that we have a 1 housing crisis that's serious, at least in 2 Tompkins County. I'm sure in other counties as 3 well. 4 If I want to get somebody into safe sober 5 housing, I don't really have options that my clients 6 can afford. 7 And when we go to the Department of 8 Social Services, what we find is that they're 9 collaborating with slum Lords who will happily 10 fleece their pockets and put our clients in these 11 substandard situations. 12 I think that, you know, the dogs and cats at 13 the SPCA live more comfortably than individuals who 14 are trying to recover from opiate addiction. 15 And I'm glad that the cats and dogs are 16 comfortable, but I think that people with, you know, 17 heroin addictions deserve to be in the kind of 18 housing that you or I or anybody who may not be in 19 recovery would like to live in. 20 CHRISTIE SPECIALLE: And then a lot of these 21 houses I know are located in areas that are the 22 least desirable to put these people back into the 23 community. You're putting them into a community of 24 other users. 25 SENATOR O'MARA: Maybe we can get up here to 1 Jim and Deb with Arbor Housing, on this angle, from 2 housing, and what you're seeing in your communities 3 where you serve. 4 JIM MULCAHY: My name is Jim Mulcahy. I work 5 for Arbor Housing and Development. I work at a 6 community residence that deals with addiction in 7 Hornell, New York. 8 One thing that I've kind of been hearing a 9 little bit of, and it's something I've thought about 10 recently, is, you know, as we speak of the funding 11 that's going to be available or not be available: 12 I've worked in this field for about 10 years, 13 and it's not to minimize anything from 5 years ago, 14 7 years ago. 15 More typically, we dealt with other drugs, 16 alcoholism, through our facility, which is just one 17 facet of what Arbor does. 18 More recently, it's become the heroin, the 19 opiate, addiction that's in the Hornell area. 20 Canisteo-Greenwood. 21 I live in Cohocton, which is a tiny little 22 community. It's there. 23 And what I find alarming, I guess, in the 24 sense that, you know, from talking to other people 25 in the agency that handle more of the funding that 1 we get through Medicaid that keeps our doors open, 2 or through state grants, government grants, that 3 that funding is less and less. 4 But, we're facing new challenges with new 5 people coming in with heroin addiction or opiate, 6 which presents a whole new set of challenges in 7 trying to help that person in, like, a therapeutic 8 environment, to give them a place to live. 9 You know, I don't like to use the term 10 "group home," but they come out of a, say, MATCH 11 inpatient program, which is a 28-day inpatient 12 program, we still keep them linked up to the MATCH 13 program on outpatient services or Steuben County 14 Mental Health, Steuben County substance-abuse 15 services, and we kind of help them on a different 16 level, and still keep them linked with the services. 17 And then to -- come to find out, well, they 18 don't -- they're not going to be able to go to 19 SCASAS, the Steuben County substance-abuse program, 20 anymore. They won't pay for it. 21 It presents new sets of challenges for us. 22 How do we help this individual? 23 I mean, we're helping them as best as we can, 24 from our standpoint, and providing them a place to 25 stay, meals, and on top of, you know, trying to 1 reteach them life skills; how we can move them up a 2 set of programs that are in the Hornell area, from 3 our place, to an apartment program, to a 4 supportive-living program. 5 All that can't be done if the funding's not 6 there. 7 And then we hear: Oh, well, we have this 8 opiate/heroin addiction in the area. Oh, by the 9 way, the funding's not there, so, your doors might 10 close. 11 Then we can't help anybody, you know? 12 So, I mean, those are things that I find 13 alarming, you know, as a professional in this field. 14 Like, how are we going to continue to help people, 15 facing the new challenges we face right now? 16 And, you know, and it's -- I've heard it 17 several times here. 18 Heroin, it's gotten into our area, and it's 19 cheap. You know, people can get it for 5, 7 dollars 20 a bag. 21 Yep, they couldn't get the pain pills 22 anymore. Medicaid wouldn't pay for that. "Well, 23 I can get heroin for 5 bucks a bag." 24 You know, and -- so we get those people into 25 a rehabilitation program, and then into our program. 1 And as we try to give them the skills and give them 2 the assistance they need to be sober, face their 3 addictions, get past their addictions, and live a 4 better life in the community again, reintroduce them 5 to the community; and, again, you know, not to 6 re-spin the wheel, but, we can't do that if the 7 funding is not available. 8 So, I mean, those are just kind of the 9 challenges we face immediately, right now. 10 SENATOR O'MARA: Deb, do you want to add 11 anything? 12 DEBBIE McCORMICK: Yes. 13 I'd like to add that I have been a heroin 14 addict for 30 years. And, I was lucky enough to 15 have access to wonderful treatment, both physical 16 and emotional. 17 I lost my son when he returned from Iraq. He 18 overdosed on fentanyl patches, and my life just 19 spiraled out of control. And I ended up getting 20 arrested for committing crimes to support my habit. 21 And, my recovery has just been amazing, from 22 the beginning to end. 23 I started out going to MATCH for a 28-day 24 program. I did notice during that time that a lot 25 of my peers had to leave after two weeks because of 1 their insurance. 2 I was then transported to Newark, New York, 3 to a place called HANAC Hall, which is SOSHA [ph.]. 4 And then I stepped down to a 5 supportive-living house in Geneva, FLACRA. 6 And then to an Arbor Development apartment. 7 I'm also a member of drug court. 8 And, I just can't say enough about the care 9 that I received. 10 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you for sharing that. 11 If we could segue into your comments on your 12 son, in returning from Iraq, and his service, 13 Dr. Bourke, at the end down there, is a longtime 14 friend of mine, is involved with treatment of 15 veterans, is a psychologist. 16 And, Frank, if you could talk a little bit 17 about your work in Corning, and The Research and 18 Recognition Project that you're involved with, and 19 how this kind of relates to the drug addictions and 20 the combination of things that really are affecting 21 our veterans that are returning. 22 FRANK BOURKE, Ph.D.: And I imagine you were 23 a little surprised to see me walk in this morning. 24 SENATOR O'MARA: Never surprised to see you 25 anywhere. 1 [Laughter.] 2 FRANK BOURKE, Ph.D.: In the sense that, the 3 last 10 years, I've been working with posttraumatic 4 stress disorder, which, of course, is the big hit on 5 veterans coming back. 6 What Tom doesn't know, is that I came today 7 because I ran a storefront in Harlem in the '60s. 8 At the same time that I was finishing up my 9 graduate work, my first cousin came to me. 10 Actually, my aunt, saying, "You've got to 11 help your cousin. He's addicted to heroin." 12 So I wound up, in addition to running the 13 storefront in Harlem, which was a community 14 devastated by heroin at the time. 15 You could sit on the third or fourth floor of 16 any of the apartment buildings then, and look out 17 the back windows during lunch, and identify five or 18 six apartments being robbed by people going up the 19 back fire escapes. Any lunch, any day of the week. 20 You couldn't walk the streets safely. 21 It was a community devastated by heroin. 22 And in the middle-class community where I was 23 born, in Brooklyn, it was also being devastated much 24 more quietly in the same way that Harlem was. 25 I wound up running a small 1 drug-rehabilitation program in a house given to me 2 by the New York State Diocese, for three years. 3 So I learned about heroin in a very up-front 4 fashion. Without being an agency, we did 5 preliminary intakes, cold turkey. 6 And those of you who work with heroin know 7 what those first two or three days look like. 8 I worked with 16 fellows in the course of my 9 time there. None of them lived past 45. 10 I'm 71 now. 11 Those were all people to me. 12 When I saw "heroin" on the agenda here, Tom, 13 the word has a different connotation than 14 recreational drugs; than the kids smoking pot behind 15 the school. 16 This is an epidemic because the drug itself 17 has a set of properties. 18 I live on a farm up in Hornby, above Corning. 19 And as an -- just an interest last night, 20 I asked my two daughters who are in their 30s and 21 were raised in Corning, about heroin. And they 22 don't differentiate between heroin and recreational 23 drugs. 24 We are, in terms of prevention, in need of a 25 widespread and quick education program, much like 1 you see smokers on television, drunk-driving, 2 et cetera. 3 I don't think that we as a state community 4 are aware of the danger. 5 I was in the last epidemic on the streets, 6 with people. It was an epidemic. It was 7 devastating. 8 It has something to do with the nature of the 9 addiction process itself with these particular 10 drugs. I think that needs to be gotten out. 11 The second piece I'd like to go to is, after 12 I left Cornell University, I built a management -- a 13 psychiatric management company, which did very well. 14 I opened and ran 12 psychiatric centers, 6 of 15 which had alcohol- and drug-rehab centers in 16 conjunction with them. They're mostly in the south 17 and the midwest. 18 All of those are either closed or half the 19 size that they were 15 years ago. 20 The insurance companies have withdrawn from 21 the support for inpatient care because of the 22 economic strain it puts upon them. 23 And I wanted to ask you a question at this 24 point, Tom, Senator Nozzolio: Is there a mechanism 25 for pushing these insurance back to taking 1 responsibility for inpatient psychiatric and alcohol 2 and drug care? 3 SENATOR O'MARA: Well, it's certainly a focus 4 of this Task Force, and part of what's been coming 5 out loud and clear through the nearly 20 of these 6 events we've had across the state, and will 7 continue, that it's going to lead us to, hopefully, 8 a package of reform legislation to deal with the 9 issues. 10 And insurance is something that has been 11 brought up repetitively, and it's something we're 12 going to be looking at, because, obviously, we hear 13 a lot about unfunded mandates at all levels. 14 And insurance companies consider any mandate 15 we put on them to be unfunded, and that's passed 16 along to rate payers. 17 And it's a matter of doing it the right way, 18 setting what our priorities are, and being very 19 careful about such mandates, because they do lead to 20 increased expenses. It's going to pop out 21 somewhere, the expense. 22 But that's certainly an aspect of what we're 23 all about here today. 24 FRANK BOURKE, Ph.D.: Okay. And I -- 25 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: I think of all the 1 suggestions made across the state, and yours is, 2 Doctor, very timely, very important, it's going to 3 be an extremely difficult fight for us to recognize 4 and realize what you're suggesting, and what's been 5 suggested up here, I think Mr. Rusen said it also, 6 that we need to have public support for this. 7 And, it's something that certainly is on the 8 agenda of the Task Force, will be considered. 9 But if it's proposed, it's certainly going to 10 have to have a lot of citizen support for it to be 11 realized. 12 FRANK BOURKE, Ph.D.: I think that getting 13 the word out on the virulence of the epidemic, and 14 the economic, and cross-support, cross-cultural, 15 cross-helping agency problems, the strains that this 16 puts on the entire system. 17 You could go into any of the emergency rooms 18 in Harlem or the Bronx in the '60s, and the rooms 19 would be clogged. You couldn't get care because of 20 the drug-addiction problems that were sitting in the 21 emergency rooms, untreated, on a regular revolving 22 basis. 23 That's translatable. I can give you all the 24 numbers to support this, Tom, in terms of the effect 25 in dollars and cents. 1 CHRISTIE SPECIALE: [Not on video.] 2 Over $600 billion. 3 FRANK BOURKE, Ph.D.: On the system, yeah. 4 I'm dealing with PTSD. It's an $18-billion 5 problem coming. 6 You could bet, I would bet, that you could 7 multiply that figure by 100, in terms of the 8 proportion of harm that a heroin epidemic will 9 produce. 10 Anything I can do to help, Tom, you can count 11 on me, from this point on. 12 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you. 13 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you, Doctor. 14 Susan. 15 SUSAN HEWITT: Yeah, thank you. 16 Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be 17 here. 18 I purposely wanted to speak to the insurance 19 issue today, and a couple people have mentioned it. 20 And, you know, especially with heroin, one of 21 the things most of the drug companies -- or, excuse 22 me, insurance companies are requiring is a failed 23 outpatient, as was mentioned earlier. 24 And, you know, with heroin, that's a 25 particularly dangerous, and often fatal, 1 requirement. 2 Heroin users, if you can get them in a place 3 where they're someplace safe, you need to really act 4 at that point. 5 Failing at outpatient, when you lose them, 6 you lose them. 7 It's a different thing than somebody -- 8 obviously, there are different stages of alcoholism, 9 and whatnot, and I'm not trying to minimize that at 10 all, but, you know, if you have an alcoholic who 11 picks up a drink, drinks for even a couple of days, 12 you can often grab the -- you know, bring them back 13 in. And if they're in outpatient treatment, you can 14 get them back. 15 Heroin users are gone. 16 We have lost, I know at least five -- we've 17 had at least five heroin overdoses in little rural 18 Tioga County since the first of year. There may be 19 more, but there's five that I know about. 20 By the way, one of those could have been 21 saved by Narcan if it had been available to the 22 police. 23 But -- 24 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Did they all result in 25 death? 1 SUSAN HEWITT: We had the five deaths, yes. 2 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Five? 3 SUSAN HEWITT: Yes, five deaths in 4 Tioga County -- 5 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: The first four were -- 6 SUSAN HEWITT: -- since the first of the 7 year, yeah. Yes. 8 And I don't know the circumstances around 9 most of those. One, I do know, could have been 10 saved by Narcan. He was found in his home by his 11 mother. Died in the hospital. 12 If it had been available either in the home 13 or in the ambulance, he would have lived. 14 He was a 24-year-old, with a lot of 15 potential, from a very -- you know, I don't want to 16 say good background, because I don't -- I don't want 17 to kind of rate one family over another. 18 But, you know, and that's exactly who we're 19 seeing, and who are dying, are the 20-somethings 20 from responsible, respectable backgrounds. 21 And it was said here, you know, these are our 22 family members, and no different than anybody here 23 in this room. And, it's just so sad. 24 I've been with Tioga County for 20 years, and 25 I've never seen the deaths. 1 I was in the Waverly office, working through 2 the meth epidemic back a few years ago, which, of 3 course, is doing its own little resurgence. And 4 that's -- you know, our office was a half mile over 5 the state border from Bradford County, which was -- 6 I think it was, was it "Time Magazine" that reported 7 that as the meth capital at the time. 8 And there was a lot of devastating things 9 that happened, certainly, but, I didn't see the 10 deaths. 11 And we have the deaths going. 12 And, you know, the thing with heroin is, if 13 you're away from it, you know, you build up a 14 tolerance and they use quite a bit. 15 But as it -- and some other people could 16 certainly speak to this better than I can, but, if 17 you go back to using after being clean, your 18 tolerance is extremely decreased, and that's when we 19 see a lot of the overdoses. 20 And if you have a person in outpatient 21 treatment and they pick up, and you try to get them 22 inpatient, and you can't, or even if you know they 23 need inpatient right from the beginning, if they're 24 clean for a while, then they pick up again, we're 25 liable to lose them. 1 And what a loss. You know, we're losing a 2 lot of really great, great people. 3 And it's my understanding that there is a 4 bill, an open -- a bill open in the Senate, that 5 would require insurance companies to pay for 6 inpatient treatment if it's recommended by a 7 qualified health professional. 8 And I would have to urge passage of that, if 9 possible. 10 And thank you for letting me speak. 11 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you. 12 We're going to open it up in just a couple of 13 minutes to anybody from the audience out there that 14 would like to make a statement or comment, ask a 15 question. 16 There's a podium over to the right for 17 anybody that would like to speak, so, keep that in 18 mind for the next couple of minutes. 19 We've got about a half hour in our time slot 20 to continue here. 21 And, Susan, I think your comments on, you 22 know, this isn't just a problem for, you know, a 23 certain class of people that you think would be 24 associated with it. 25 We had a hearing of this Task Force in Auburn 1 last week, in Mike's district, and we heard from the 2 mother of a daughter who died of an overdose a year 3 ago. She graduated from Cortland University, 4 magna cum laude. Was having trouble finding the 5 right employment and work, getting depressed, and 6 started using heroin. 7 Her mother found out about it, confronted her 8 on the telephone about it. She basically admitted 9 it, and the mother was going to get her the next 10 day. She overdosed that night. 11 It's just how tragic and how quick. 12 It was just such an incredible example of 13 that. 14 So, is there anybody else on the panel here 15 that would like to add anything before we open it up 16 to -- 17 Yes. 18 NAN WOODWORTH SHAW: Yes, hi. 19 Nan Woodworth Shaw from Watkins Glen Schools. 20 And what I've heard Dr. Bourke say, I can't 21 stress enough the need to really look at 22 inter-agencies and systems. 23 And I haven't really heard the devastation to 24 families. And in the schools, we're seeing the 25 impact on young children, in particular. 1 And it's at a crisis level. 2 In other words, if somebody is arrested or 3 gets the treatment that they need, the impact on 4 their families and very young children is really 5 phenomenal right now. 6 So, we need our systems working together so 7 that we're right there for those kids, you know, and 8 the families left behind. 9 So there's so much permeating aside from 10 this. 11 In Schuyler County, that's -- what's come 12 mostly to our attention, is meth at this point. 13 But, I've heard, especially with some young adults 14 that were just mentioned, too, there is a heroin 15 impact, as well. 16 But -- but like I say, in the schools, the 17 real direct impact is these very young children. 18 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you. 19 UNDERSHERIFF JAMES ALLARD: If I could? 20 SENATOR O'MARA: Yeah. 21 UNDERSHERIFF JAMES ALLARD: One thing we 22 haven't talked about is the county-jail aspect; the 23 impact, and the opportunity for treatment. 24 Currently, I know in the Steuben County Jail, 25 we're typically around 160 to 180 inmates that are 1 there, usually from three to nine months. And, 2 probably 80 percent of them have some sort of 3 mental-health treatable issue, that the underlying 4 issue is substance abuse. 5 We have two full-time mental-health 6 counselors who focus almost completely on suicide 7 prevention. 8 We have no treatment counselors for heroin or 9 opioid abuse because the resources aren't there. 10 And it seems like this would be an incredible 11 opportunity for treatment within the county jails 12 across the state, especially as the psychiatric 13 treatment centers reduce and close. Again, those 14 folks that are so desperate to seek on their 15 addiction, will do anything to get and meet that 16 addiction, they end up with us. 17 And we expend tremendous resources, not just 18 on the constant watch which accompanies their 19 withdrawal when they're first in our facility, but 20 also for the treatment as they continue to seek, and 21 all of the disciplinary issues we experience as they 22 attempt to find a way to seek those drugs even while 23 they're locked up. 24 So it's a huge impact on our budget, but 25 it's, also, I feel, a huge opportunity for treatment 1 that has been virtually unexplored. 2 NAN WOODWORTH SHAW: And finding appropriate 3 treatments for the dual-diagnosis is very, very 4 difficult, you know, and very difficult to get 5 through insurance companies, again. 6 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: What's happening now, 7 Sheriff, at our local jails? 8 We've heard from other custodians, like 9 yourself, such as yourself, they feel grossly 10 inadequate to be able to deal with the issue. Their 11 officers aren't trained in the issue. 12 UNDERSHERIFF JAMES ALLARD: Right. 13 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: They don't have 14 professionals in the situation to do that. 15 UNDERSHERIFF JAMES ALLARD: Right. 16 A lot of our -- again, there's no training 17 within the DCS curriculum, anywhere. 18 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Local. 19 UNDERSHERIFF JAMES ALLARD: Even statewide, 20 there's no training to be given to the correction 21 officers to teach them how to interact with an 22 opioid or heroin addict. 23 There is, on the mental-health side, they're 24 so overworked. Again, you've got 2 folks treating 25 150 mental-health patients on any given day, that 1 they simply don't have the time and resources to 2 engage in any kind of substance -- substantive 3 substance-abuse treatment. They just don't have the 4 time. 5 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: What type of programs 6 would you suggest? 7 UNDERSHERIFF JAMES ALLARD: Any kind of 8 addiction-based program that we can get in there. 9 And, again, even if we can affect 10 percent 10 of our population, that's a tremendous opportunity. 11 And the ones that are there, some are going 12 to respond, some are not going to respond, but to 13 have it available, if we can get some sort of 14 addiction-based that is not just for alcohol. 15 That's all we have currently is alcohol 16 treatment, but we don't have anything for the 17 opioid-based addiction. 18 And the other side that we're seeing, also, 19 is the mixture of the heroin with bath salts and 20 methamphetamine use. We've seen a tremendous 21 increase in that, where, because the meth -- or the 22 heroin is so much less expensive than some of the 23 prescription drugs they used to mix with, to ease 24 the coming down from the bath salts or the 25 methamphetamine, now they're using heroin as that 1 supplement to ease it, and which seems to be a much 2 more addictive way to go. 3 But, again, it's because the price is so low. 4 SENATOR O'MARA: What percentage of your 5 inmates, would you say, have an addiction issue, and 6 what percentage have mental-health issues, in your 7 jails? 8 UNDERSHERIFF JAMES ALLARD: They're so tied 9 together. 10 NAN WOODWORTH SHAW: Yeah. 11 UNDERSHERIFF JAMES ALLARD: I mean, I would 12 say the majority of the mental-health issues have 13 underlying substance-abuse issues. It's a -- it 14 would be a very high number. 15 DEBBIE McCORMICK: Senator, may I speak? 16 SENATOR O'MARA: Yes. 17 DEBBIE McCORMICK: I would just like to share 18 my experience with you, for jail. 19 I've been in jail four or five times since 20 the death of my son. 21 Uhm, basically, you are in a cell, detoxing, 22 with no supervision. 23 I've been told that that's too bad for me, 24 because I did it myself, to myself. 25 There's not much -- the church -- going to 1 church was the best thing that could I have done 2 when I was in jail, and AA meetings. 3 But, basically, you're being punished, and 4 detoxing, and being very sick, with no relief. 5 SENATOR O'MARA: Yes. 6 ASSEMBLYMAN PALMESANO: This, uhm -- 7 Undersheriff Allard, I know Mr. Rusen, you asked 8 [unintelligible], I didn't know -- because you said 9 there's no availability, because of the resources, 10 to offer the drug -- the treatment, the counseling, 11 in the jails, because of resources. 12 And you mentioned that there's some 13 restrictions to go outside of a state facility, like 14 an OASAS or a licensed facility. 15 Is that something that, where a facility or a 16 jail might not have the resources, but they could 17 partner with a treatment facility to go into those? 18 Because -- is that something that's even 19 feasible if those restrictions were released? 20 WILLIAM RUSEN: Let me say, you know, from my 21 perspective, this is all about -- I worked in the 22 community health-center system out in 23 Washington State. And anytime you can put a system 24 together in which you put the care out there, I can 25 remember seeing 200 kids in Basin City, Washington, 1 lined up to get vaccinations. 2 Okay? 3 And so from that, I'm the first guy to stand 4 up and say, "Me" [raises hand]. 5 If we can have an arrangement where at least 6 I could cover my costs. 7 I don't think it's really fair for me to do 8 it in a way that's going to make me close down the 9 rest of my organization. 10 So I'm the first guy -- if we can work out -- 11 if we can work out a way that at least my costs 12 could be covered, I'll be in his jail tomorrow. 13 Okay? 14 I mean, that's the -- that's -- what we've 15 done. And I'm not in a safe facility. I'm a small 16 not-for-profit organization. 17 And when I say an "OASAS-licensed facility," 18 I mean my building, which is inspected by OASAS and 19 given a license, then I can provide services there. 20 But I can't go outside that building. 21 I, literally, can't do it on the street. 22 I, literally, can't walk across the street and do 23 it. 24 I mean, I could do it, but, (a) I'm not going 25 to get paid, (b) it's not going to count, and 1 (c) I could get in trouble. 2 Okay? 3 So from that perspective, if we could get -- 4 you know, being able to provide these services in 5 non-traditional, non-licensed buildings, because 6 that's what you're talking about, would, just, in 7 the same way, put those services into where the 8 people are and out of buildings. 9 And both things can happen: They can still 10 be in the buildings, but they can also be out there. 11 And, again, I use the example of, when 12 I worked out in La Clinica in Pasco, Washington, we 13 vaccinized [sic] 200 kids. 14 Those 200 kids didn't come to Pasco, 15 Washington. We went out to Basin City, which, 16 believe me, is about two buildings, and we lined up 17 200 kids. And we didn't ask what their immigration 18 status is. We didn't ask any of those questions. 19 All we did is, we vaccinated those kids 20 because they needed to be vaccinated. 21 And -- now, did we save some money? I'd like 22 to think we did, because those kids didn't get sick. 23 I don't know. 24 All I'm saying is, that's the only way to get 25 the services out there. 1 I worked in community mental health for many, 2 many years. And the most effective stuff you can 3 do, I've done it in schools, is get out there and do 4 the work in the places it's needed. 5 CHRISTIE SPECIALLE: We are an OASAS-funded 6 organization, but being a prevention agency, we are 7 not licensed under OASAS. We are able to go into 8 the jails and into the schools to provide our 9 services. It is not treatment-based. It is 10 education-based. 11 However, in the treatment programs, I know 12 that they provide a lot of education. 13 Our problem is, our Tioga County Jail has 14 been more than, you know, open to having us come in 15 and provide education services. 16 It's the lack of staff that we have to meet 17 our community needs. 18 Once all the heroin happened, the deaths in 19 Tioga County, our phone wouldn't stop ringing with, 20 What can you do? What can you do? 21 And being such a small organization, with our 22 funding continuously getting cut, we are able to go 23 into the jails, into the schools, and into the 24 community, which is what we do, with a very limited 25 number of staff. 1 SENATOR O'MARA: At this time, we'll open it 2 up for anybody in the audience. Just raise your 3 hand if you would like to -- 4 Yes, you in the front, if you could go over 5 to the podium and use the microphone. 6 And, sir, you can be second. 7 DEB DiBARTOLO [ph.]: Hi, my name's 8 Deb DiBartolo [ph.]. I'm a family nurse practitioner 9 in Tompkins County. I do work at the 10 Tompkins County Jail, but I'm not representing the 11 jail. I'm representing my own opinions here. 12 One thing that I'd like to suggest, as far as 13 the Suboxone-treatment program goes, is, right now, 14 that's just opened for physicians to prescribe. 15 It's not available for a nurse practitioner to 16 prescribe. 17 And as we see changes in health care, nurse 18 practitioners are going to be our front line in 19 primary care. 20 Considering opening up that privilege to 21 nurse practitioners so we have that available to 22 more clients, to provide more treatment, might be an 23 opportunity we might want to take a look at as a 24 community. 25 I'd also like to make a comment about the 1 importance to meet somebody who's withdrawing from 2 their heroin or opiate, particularly when the 3 opportunity arises. 4 So many of my patients that I see, both in my 5 community practice and at the jail, there comes a 6 time in your addiction you're not using anymore to 7 get high or to have fun. You're using so you don't 8 get sick. 9 And we miss huge opportunities, both in the 10 hospital and at the jail, and even at the clinic 11 level, not because we don't care, but because we 12 don't have the funding to manage this. 13 And, in fact, if I have somebody coming in 14 dopesick, I have nothing to offer them except some 15 clonidine, which is, essentially, not very 16 effective. 17 If I have any opportunity to get them to 18 treatment from where I live, I usually have to send 19 them to Syracuse for an inpatient treatment. 20 Hospitals generally do not admit patients for 21 opiate withdrawal. It is not considered a 22 life-threatening event. But, we miss a huge 23 opportunity. 24 And if we miss that opportunity, we're 25 sending these folks back out on the street to use 1 again, just to prevent being dopesick. And laying 2 and puking and having leg cramps and bone pain and 3 diarrhea and sweats and chills for four or five or 4 six days is an immiserating, immiserating 5 experience. And no one wants to go through that. 6 And that does happen in the jails, as well, 7 unfortunately, and I have seen it at every jail I've 8 worked at, from Rikers Island, right straight up 9 through Upstate New York. 10 So intervention, at some point, whether we do 11 a temporary Suboxone taper, have that available in 12 the jail, or some other humane way to help these 13 folks, and not miss this opportunity to bring them 14 into treatment and let them know we're on their 15 side, instead of just constantly shutting doors. 16 When we shut doors and we say, "This problem 17 is your problem," we wouldn't say that to a diabetic 18 coming into a hospital with hyperglycemia. 19 I don't know why we're saying that to our 20 substance-abusers who are coming into, trying to 21 seek my help and my care. 22 And I think it's just very shameful of us, as 23 a society, that we're doing that to other members. 24 I'd like to say, about the I-STOP program, 25 I think it's been very effective. 1 Just in the past nine months I've been using 2 it in private practice, I have seen a significant 3 decrease in the number of patients coming into my 4 clinic seeking opiate medications. 5 It, uhm -- it's not the panacea, obviously. 6 People that are getting drugs in Pennsylvania, and 7 stuff, are getting prescriptions still down there, 8 I can't search them down. But I have seen a 9 significant decrease in the number of clients I'm 10 seeing. 11 Where I do see we still have a problem, 12 though, HIPAA, a good idea gone bad. 13 The nature of substance-abuse disorder itself 14 is secrecy. And, the fact that I can't share 15 information freely, even though it does protect 16 people's rights, sometimes does prevent me from 17 getting what I need to assure that I'm not enabling 18 an addiction, as well. 19 So, HIPAA, good idea gone bad. Maybe 20 something we need to work on in the future as far as 21 substance-abuse treatment. 22 The other thing, one more thing I'd like to 23 say is, life-skills treatment in the jail I think 24 would be very effective. 25 Monroe County Jail, there's actually 1 published literature, evidence-based published 2 literature, on the program that they're doing there, 3 where they do a transitional-care program. 4 They start in the jail, transition to the 5 community, and then go back for re-enforcement after 6 people graduate from that program, has been shown to 7 be effective. 8 As far as I know, it's only the Monroe County 9 Jail that's using that model for their treatment for 10 folks that are being released. 11 But it's a good opportunity, with 12 evidence-based practice to support it, that we might 13 want to look at in the future. 14 Thank you. 15 And you guys rock. Thanks for doing a good 16 job. 17 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you. 18 Thank you for being here. 19 Yes, sir. 20 KEN: Hello, my name is Ken, and I'm a 21 patient at Trinity of Chemung County. 22 And a few things I want to touch on that you 23 guys talked about, the Assemblyman here, he was very 24 correct that OASAS needs to lift some of its 25 restrictions to allow people to practice off of 1 site. 2 I know at the jails, I've been there a few 3 times myself, and the thing about jail is, when 4 there's a few people that are trying to do right and 5 go to these AA programs, and stuff, you are then put 6 back in a population with a lot of people that are 7 not; that don't want to do that, don't want to get 8 clean and sober. 9 And the mentality you end up leaving jail 10 with is not a positive one. 11 If the jailers, I mean, if it was possible to 12 separate the people who were trying to do this and 13 put them on a different block, I believe that would 14 help a lot. 15 I know it would have helped me a lot when 16 I was there, from the people that are just talking 17 about getting out and wanting to use again. 18 A few other things I wrote down here while 19 you guys were speaking: 20 The prosecutors: I know that, when I got 21 into trouble, it was very easy to talk my way into a 22 short sentence. 23 Even though it was my fourth or fifth time 24 caught stealing for drugs, I was -- very easily 25 could talk my way into a 60-day sentence. I was 1 back out on the street in 40 days. 2 I believe that if we gave longer sentences, 3 with probation on the back end of it, with mandatory 4 AA meetings and NA meetings, it's the greatest 5 resource I have today, is AA and NA meetings. It's 6 what really keeps me sober, and they're completely 7 free. 8 Just, I don't believe 40 days is enough 9 for -- to break a habit. Longer sentences are 10 critical, I believe. 11 I know they're talking about it, but 12 drug-testing people on social services is huge. 13 A lot of these addicts, they live for free 14 off the State. And all the money they have, they 15 spend on drugs. 16 I mean, if they're not able to pass a drug 17 test, I don't believe that their rent should be 18 paid. 19 I know I lost a job. And it wasn't until 20 I lost everything in my life: my family, my house, 21 my job. 22 Uhm, I lived in a tent for a long time in 23 Ithaca, and, in order just to keep using. 24 But, I mean, encourage family members of 25 people who are using to cut them off. 1 I mean, it sounds harsh, but it's the only 2 thing that gets to people, is when you have nothing 3 left, is only when you will recover. 4 Just a few more things. 5 I know that there's a -- some of these drug 6 houses, the landlords, they know what's going on. 7 In particularly, I know there's a house down 8 on Gray Street, and the landlord, she only allows 9 drug dealers to manage the house, you know, because 10 they pay her, and, you know, she ends up with larger 11 pockets because of it. 12 And I believe there should be stiffer 13 penalties, not only on people that know people are 14 dealing drugs out of their house, but if they know 15 people are using drugs in the house, and they're not 16 getting them out of the house. 17 I'm in the current process, I'm going to be 18 closing on a house next week, on Third Street. And 19 I plan on putting in all my leases, that if there's 20 any drugs or alcohol on the premises, that you will 21 be immediately evicted within 10 days, because 22 that's the quickest time I can do it by law. 23 Because I do believe there needs to be more 24 sober-living houses in the community that are not 25 run by treatment facilities or anything like that. 1 Like, these landlords have the ability to 2 make sure there are not drugs in these houses. They 3 just have to get up, you know, and go check on the 4 houses every now and then, and they'll see, the 5 activity is clear. 6 If the house is not clean, and stuff like 7 that, you know that people are not living correctly. 8 And I know that needle-exchanges cost money, 9 but, if we could make it so that the local 10 pharmacies, they just send a list to the sheriff's 11 department of people buying needles, you know, 12 I believe it will give law enforcement a much 13 clearer statement on, you know, who the drug users 14 are -- in the community are, and make a it better 15 available for them to crack down on them. 16 That's all I have. 17 Thank you. 18 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you very much. 19 ANDY DRAKE: My name's Andy Drake. I'm also 20 a Trinity of Chemung County. 21 Uhm, I believe one of the biggest things is, 22 like, they said it's hard to get Suboxone doctors 23 around here, but, like, my addiction started because 24 of painkillers. 25 I can go to the emergency room and tell them 1 I have a toothache or a backache, and they throw a 2 prescription at me. 3 Like, actually, I don't see how it's so hard 4 to give medicine that is helping people get out of 5 addiction, but, the addictive medicines themselves 6 are so easy to get. 7 And, also, like, with the hospitals, I went 8 to St. Joe's for detox. They kept me there for 9 2 1/2 days, didn't give me any medicine, and then 10 just let me go. 11 And before I could get into a -- I went to 12 Dick Van Dyke. I had about a week in between where 13 I was just out on the streets. I ended up using 14 again. 15 Fortunately, I knew where to find Suboxone on 16 the street so I wasn't using heroin. But, like, it 17 just seems like everywhere around here. 18 Like, you can -- I can walk down the street, 19 still, and find heroin in probably a half hour. 20 Like, that's definitely, it's all over. 21 Unfortunately, Elmira, too, is in the middle 22 of every major city. Philly, all of them, like, you 23 can drive two hours, each way, and get it. But, 24 like, it's definitely everywhere around here. 25 Besides that, Ken pretty much said everything 1 else. 2 But, uhm -- like, definitely, the detox, 3 like, centers, like, there's nowhere around here to 4 really go for that. 5 And, Suboxone, that's just, like, I know 6 three or four people that died from heroin, that 7 were trying to get into Trinity, but the Suboxone 8 doctor couldn't take on anymore clients. 9 So, like, that's all I have. 10 Thanks. 11 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you very much. 12 JOHN BARRY: Good morning. My name is -- oh, 13 that's loud. 14 My name is John Barry. I'm the executive 15 director of the Southern Tier AIDS Program. 16 We actually operate two syringe-exchange 17 programs. We cover an 8-county area, and we have 18 syringe-exchange programs in Broome County, and also 19 in Tompkins County. 20 First of all, I wanted to let the elected 21 officials know that I'm going to break from the herd 22 here. I'm not going to ask you for any money. 23 [Laughter.] 24 JOHN BARRY: I would only ask for permission 25 to offer the lifesaving services that we offer. 1 I also want to give you my thanks for 2 recently passing legislation so that you can have a 3 standing order, and people -- community-based 4 agencies, like ours, can pass out Narcan and 5 Naloxone kits to people, to prevent overdoses. 6 Now, if you could do me one additional small 7 favor, and get the Governor to sign that -- 8 [Laughter.] 9 JOHN BARRY: -- so that we can actually pass 10 them out more readily, I would be eternally 11 grateful. 12 I have one in my hand, one of those kits. 13 The Department of Health supplies these to us. 14 Had our medical practitioner been available 15 today, you would all be receiving that training. 16 So, again, my apologies for that, Senator and 17 Assembly people. 18 But, again, please speak to the Governor on 19 that matter and I would be eternally grateful. 20 We see here [unintelligible] users every day. 21 Our programs were begun to prevent HIV and 22 hepatitis C, and we saved the taxpayers of New York 23 a lot of money because of that. Okay? 24 So much money, and our programs have been 25 found to be so effective, that, actually, 1 New York State has submitted paperwork to the 2 federal government to make our services 3 Medicaid-reimbursable. 4 Don't take my word for it. Look at the 5 actions of New York State. 6 In addition to preventing those infections, 7 we take infected injection equipment off the street 8 and dispose of it appropriately. 9 We don't want the trash collectors to get 10 stuck. 11 We certainly don't want our law-enforcement 12 officers to be stuck with a used needle while 13 they're searching somebody. 14 We provide opioid-overdose kits, as I pointed 15 out, containing Narcan; train people how to use them 16 appropriately to save a life. 17 We refer people to treatment, and we assure 18 that they get there. It's one of the most important 19 services we offer, in our opinion. 20 And we're there every day when people come 21 in, to say: Have you had enough yet? Is it time to 22 go to treatment? We can make that happen. 23 And, finally, this is a cost-effective 24 intervention. 25 If we can prevent two people a year from 1 becoming hepatitis C-positive, we can pay for both 2 of our syringe-exchange programs, all the staffing, 3 all the supplies, all the disposal fees...all of it; 4 the whole shebang. 5 Now, I know there's some controversy around 6 what we do, and I accept that as a piece of my job, 7 but, I think that this thing has gotten so out of 8 hand, that we probably need to reach out and take 9 the help of anybody who wants to offer it. 10 Thank you. 11 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you. 12 RICK HUGHEY [ph.]: Good morning. 13 I'm Rick Hughey [ph.]. I live in Schuyler County. 14 I'm a retired correction officer with 15 New York State. I worked 20 years at 16 Monterey Shock, which was a drug-treatment program. 17 The State's slowly dismantling it. 18 There's 600 beds there, capable of putting 19 600 guys through that program. 20 Saved a lot of lives. I gave people a lot of 21 discipline, a lot of motivation. 22 I've heard today: Drug epidemic. Crime 23 epidemic. 24 We're going to have an epidemic of needing 25 treatment programs and correctional facilities 1 again, so, why New York State's chosen to close one 2 of the finest, that the Governor referred to as 3 "groundbreaking" on the 25th anniversary a couple 4 of years ago, I don't understand it. 5 It's there, it's ready to go. 6 In 2 1/2 months, it will be surplus property 7 sold. 8 And I think it's just wrong. 9 They had one of the finest treatment teams in 10 this region, and it's going to be gone if we don't 11 save it. 12 And you guys in Albany I know have been 13 making the case. 14 And we could be proactive and keep ahead of 15 this heroin and opiate epidemic, let alone meth and 16 everything else, by keeping this treatment program 17 going. 18 Thanks. 19 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you. 20 Thank you for your continued advocacy of 21 Monterey. 22 As you know, we've worked hand-in-hand 23 against the closure of that, and we continue our 24 efforts, and will continue. 25 Everyone on this panel, and more in Albany, 1 understands the value and the importance of that 2 program, and certainly the usefulness of Monterey in 3 what could be very effective programs in our 4 corrections department, to continue. 5 So our work is not done in that regard, and 6 we will continue that effort. 7 Thank you. 8 KEN: Thank you, gentlemen. 9 DA JOSEPH FAZZARY: I think it's still 10 morning. 11 Good morning. 12 My name's Joe Fazzary. I'm the 13 Schuyler County District Attorney. I've been in 14 that position now for over 16 years. 15 We've talked about education, prevention, 16 prosecution. 17 I happen to work on all three of those 18 fronts. 19 My question really, today, is for Chris. 20 Because, one of the things that I've done for 21 the last 16 years, is go into every school district 22 in Schuyler County, I've also done this at Corning 23 Community College and Elmira College; going into the 24 schools and talking to the kids about the really bad 25 things that can happen with drug abuse. 1 My question to Chris is: If you had somebody 2 like me, or some of the other educators that are 3 here, that got to you either in the middle school or 4 in the early part of high school, would that have 5 prevented you from getting into this addictive habit 6 of heroin? 7 CHRIS: I think that would have been a big 8 help. 9 DA JOSEPH FAZZARY: All right. 10 And I guess my next question is: Instead of 11 having somebody like me standing there, trying to -- 12 And our biggest problem is methamphetamine, 13 and so I try to tell the children: This is what 14 you're putting in your body. This is what goes into 15 making methamphetamine, and, the battery strips -- 16 the lithium-battery strips, the Coleman fuel...all 17 of that stuff. 18 Would it be better if, as educators, we were 19 able to bring somebody like you, somebody like these 20 two guys, into the schools, and be able to say, 21 "This is what happened to me. This is what happened 22 to my life," would that have helped you more than 23 just having somebody like me talk to you and show 24 you on a projector, "These are the things that 25 you're putting in your body?" 1 CHRIS: Absolutely. The story is written on 2 the person. You can see it. 3 DA JOSEPH FAZZARY: Right? 4 I mean -- so I think that the point, Senator, 5 is, we have throughout the state these education 6 programs, but I think that we probably need some 7 greater resources to be able to get to these kids 8 earlier. 9 And I'm not sure what the age is. I don't 10 know when we should start. 11 I've gone as low as fourth grade, talking 12 about drug abuse. 13 And I've had a classroom of elementary-school 14 kids raise their hands and say that they knew what 15 marijuana was, and that they had seen marijuana in 16 their household. 17 About 100 kids, having about 5 that said they 18 didn't. 19 Now, did they all raise their hands because 20 everybody else was raising their hands? I don't 21 know, but, numerous kids knew what marijuana was. 22 And I went -- I took it a step farther, and 23 asked: Has anybody ever seen cocaine in their 24 house? 25 I probably had 10 kids say that they had seen 1 cocaine. 2 So, I'm about the education. 3 I've done the education, I've done the 4 drug-treatment court, and I've done the prosecution. 5 The prosecution, to me, is the last resort. 6 That's for the people that, you know, we've tried to 7 educate and weren't able to treat; or, you know, 8 maybe they're just not ready to be treated. 9 But -- so I throw that out for the people who 10 that the education, and ask for your thoughts: 11 When do we start, and what do we need to do? 12 How do we get guys like Chris and these 13 two gentlemen to come and help us? Because they're 14 the living examples. 15 CHRISTIE SPECIALLE: We can start our 16 programs as low as in preschool. 17 When we work with the lower-age range, we're 18 focusing more on life skills, making good decisions, 19 and things like that, before we actually get into 20 touching on drugs or harder substances. 21 But we can start, absolutely, at the 22 preschool level. 23 As far as getting, you know, people in 24 recovery, we do; we have people that reach out to us 25 offering that service. 1 Then we have to be careful, bringing that 2 into the school. A lot of times, we have to have 3 background checks in order for educators to come 4 into the school. 5 And we also need to make sure that, you know, 6 these people have been in recovery for a decent 7 amount of time before we're bringing somebody to 8 talk. 9 Furthermore, it's a very slippery slope when 10 we are doing that, because we don't want to send the 11 impression that, Well, this person turned out okay. 12 So it is -- and we've used it before. 13 Colleen has used First Stop DWI; somebody who has 14 suffered consequences. 15 And I do think that it can be good. It just 16 is, it needs -- we need to be careful with the way 17 we use it. 18 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: My frustration, is that 19 all of us have supported the D.A.R.E. program. The 20 officers have been throughout our sheriffs' 21 departments. The district attorneys have been 22 supportive of an educational program. 23 I think, Mr. District Attorney, you hit it on 24 the head. We're hearing this time and again, that 25 the only education really of value, apparently, on 1 this subject, is peer-to-peer. And that when 2 peer-to-peer is saying, "This is okay," then we have 3 a very, very difficult process. 4 We, as part of this Task Force, are going to 5 try to help reevaluate all the drug-education 6 programs. 7 As good as they have been, I think the 8 statistics certainly bear out, they have not worked 9 regarding this heroin epidemic. 10 And, that, I asked a young man about Chris's 11 age in our New York City hearing, "Why did you turn 12 to heroin?" 13 And he indicated that -- and here's a young 14 man of -- from a upper middle-class family, who had 15 no real -- none of the real pressures of economics 16 or other involvement -- he just said he was 17 experimenting, and that one use of one medicine or 18 drug led to another. 19 And, how we stop that experimentation 20 process, we certainly would welcome you. 21 I praise you for what you do in trying to 22 educate our young people. 23 But, we need to find alternative ways that 24 are, frankly, more effective in this area. 25 And thank you for raising the issue. 1 Thank you for your work. 2 DA JOSEPH FAZZARY: Thank you. 3 WILLIAM RUSEN: [Inaudible] we've actually 4 done this at the Dryden School, Trumansburg, and 5 Spencer Van Ettan. 6 And I'll be glad to volunteer and go up to 7 Watkins Glen. All we have to do is set up a time. 8 There's a lot -- there's is a great place 9 that's -- I stand second to none in my belief in 10 evidence-based practices. 11 I also believe there are some other things 12 that we can do, from time to time, that are helpful 13 in augmenting evidence-based practice. 14 CHRISTIE SPECIALLE: OASAS is cracking down 15 and getting more strict upon the use of us using 16 evidence-based programs and practices, too. 17 SENATOR O'MARA: All right, well, thank you 18 all very much. 19 We've exceeded our allotted time. 20 I thank everybody for their participation in 21 this very important issue, and look forward to our 22 completing these forums around the state, with 23 Mike Nozzolio and Senator Phil Boyle's leadership on 24 this Committee, to come up with a package of 25 proposals that will, hopefully, help all of us in 1 our various aspects of this epidemic we're facing. 2 And, thank you all for coming here today. 3 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Senator O'Mara, 4 and all of you for your participation. It's very, 5 very helpful. 6 SENATOR O'MARA: Have a great day. 7 8 (Whereupon, at approximately 12:01 p.m., 9 the forum held before the New York State Joint 10 Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction 11 concluded, and adjourned.) 12 13 ---oOo--- 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Public Forum: Chemung County Panel Discussion on Elmira'S Heroin Epidemic

Transcript