Lynn mother organizes vigil for drug victims

LYNN – “My whole world fell on me and smashed me,” said Nuris Severino, recalling the drug overdose death of her son, Jose, and the commitment she has made to ensure he is not forgotten.Severino, owner of the Market Street bakery that bears her name, is helping organize the Aug. 1 vigil at the Lynn Common gazebo remembering victims of drug overdoses and honoring their families, recovering addicts and the people who help them rebuild their lives.Drugs claimed her son’s life five years ago and the lives of 637 people across Massachusetts in 2006, according to state Public Health statistics. By contrast, overdose deaths numbered 97 in the state in 1999.”I hear about overdoses every day,” said Gary Langis, an outreach worker with the Union Street-based Healthy Streets program.Langis and fellow workers Mary Wheeler and Fermin Ortiz trace the deaths back to a fatal combination of drugs, including Valium and other benzodiazepines and opioid addictions that, in many cases, begin with addicts using prescription painkillers like Oxycontin.Users are sometimes prescribed painkillers or obtain them from people who have prescriptions for powerful chronic pain relievers. Langis said the path from prescribed medication to illegal drugs is often a short one.”Pharmaceutical drugs don’t elicit the same kind of fear as street drugs,” he said.Healthy Streets workers reach out to addicts in Lynn, including many who have come to the city from other locations, and try to steer them, as well as their relatives and friends, to drug treatment programs and insurance to pay for the help they need.The program placed 225 addicts in substance abuse programs last year. Wheeler said some people who receive help stay away from drugs. Others use again and end up wandering from city to city buying and using drugs or bouncing in and out of treatment programs.Severino said her son’s death steered some of his friends away from drugs. She plans to share that message during the vigil, scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m.”If I can help other families, I’ll do anything possible,” she said.The vigil is also a chance, Ortiz said, for people who have lost a loved one to drugs “to interact with people going through the same pain.”Healthy Streets runs group discussions focusing on ways addicts can reduce risks related to drug use and it provides “risk reduction materials,” including condoms, bleach kits and access to sterile syringes.The group also educates parents of addicts and other loved ones about ways to save the life of someone who has overdosed, including use of the overdose revival drug Naloxone and heart and respiratory stimulation techniques aimed at keeping an overdose victim alive until medical help arrives.Wheeler and her colleagues credit police, drug treatment programs and state legislators working to combat prescription drug abuse with helping save addicts’ lives.”The solution is to come at the problem from all sides,” she said.