Nassau County faces a real fight against heroin

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What’s the biggest concern on Long Island today? Sure, property taxes and quality education are always on everyone’s mind, but right now the heroin epidemic that is threatening members of our community as young as middle-school age has middle-class families across the Island on edge.

Things have gotten so bad that Queens District Attorney Richard Brown has dubbed the Long Island Expressway the “Heroin Highway.”

The numbers on heroin use in Nassau County are truly alarming. Addiction counselors are beginning to see users as young as 12 coming in for help with addiction. In the past two years on Long Island, heroin has killed a record number of people, and according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, heroin arrests are up 163 percent in the past year.

According to statistics from the Nassau County Office of Human Services, in 2014 there were 51 deaths from heroin and 57 from other opioids — oxycodone, hydrocodone and hydromorphone. That number has steadily risen every year since 2010, when there were just 23 heroin-related deaths and 44 from other opioids. The number of heroin-related deaths rose by 38 percent from 2011 to 2014.

These are the deaths, and they are tragic and avoidable. But the number of non-fatal overdoses of heroin and other opioids far surpasses the number of deaths. In the first quarter of this year, there were 207 non-fatal overdoses. By comparison, in the first quarter of 2014, there were 173.

Heroin is having a devastating impact on families, as it is impacting high school kids in record numbers. Its use has been shown to have no boundaries, and it does not discriminate based on race or socioeconomic status. It is truly frightening.

Our law enforcement officials have a major problem on their hands. There are two main factors that contribute to what many have labeled the “perfect storm” of addiction on Long Island. The first is its close proximity to major airports and transportation centers. The second is the statewide crackdown on prescription painkillers, which has caused kids to pursue the cheaper and more accessible drug of choice, heroin. The price of pills has skyrocketed, while the price of heroin has plummeted.

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