On Wednesday, Oct. 29, Island Trees High School hosted Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent Charles Bernard who made a special presentation to parents about the influx of drugs on Long Island and signs that every parent should be on the lookout for. Bernard explained that prescription drugs are becoming the most widely abused in the country and the epidemic has already begun to hit Long Island high school students.
“We’ve lost our ability to discern what is helpful and useful,” he explained. “The U.S. consumes more than 70 percent of the world’s opioid and prescription drug overdoses kill more people than heroin and cocaine combined.”
In the presentation, Bernard pointed out that the U.S. makes up about five percent of the total world population; however, the culture consumes 99 percent of the world’s Vicodin and 84 percent of the world’s OxyContin.
And now, it seems, the prescription drug epidemic has hit Long Island in a big way. Bernard discussed major media cases in which those looking for their fix turned to drastic measures as well as those looking to make money found their way into the prescription drug market by falsifying prescriptions.
Bernard explained that the DEA is tackling the prescription drug epidemic with a three-sided attack: enforcement, education and treatment. He explained that all three are necessary in order to eradicate and control the growing market for prescription drugs. “There is no magic bullet to make it go away, so we need to come at it from all three angles,” he said.
However, Bernard explained that parents need to keep track of what is in their homes because very often, teens and young adults are swiping the pills from their own medicine cabinets.
“So many of these pills are found right under the roofs of all of us,” he said.
Heroin, on the other hand, is still raging on Long Island, he said. “Heroin is still very prevalent and close by,” said Bernard.
He said that while opioid deaths have been declining, heroin deaths are on the rise on Long Island. The concentration is so much more pure than it used to be, he said, and users begin by snorting it. Eventually, when they cannot re-create their first high, they turn to shooting it.
However, Bernard explained that no child is safe—athlete, honor student or model community citizen—from the pitfalls of both prescription drugs as well as heroin and that parents need to be aware of what their child is doing. They need to ask questions, have tough discussions and not turn a blind eye to reality. Bernard also explained that parents should talk to their child about Good Samaritan Laws – they have helped save many lives from being taken by overdoses.
“It’s all about the choices your child makes when no one is looking over their shoulder or telling them what to do,” he said.
