Town gathers to discuss battling opiate addiction

SAUGUS – Town Hall auditorium was packed Wednesday as the town prepared to move forward with its grant to reduce opiate addiction, and Greg Nickolas said he was sure everyone in the room had been affected in some way by addiction.The Youth and Recreation director, who has been the point person for the town?s problem of high opiate-related overdoses for over 15 years, said though the community was moving toward the second stage in the Massachusetts Opioid Abuse Prevention Collaborative program (MOAPC) with Revere, Chelsea and Winthrop, a solution to the problem was not around the corner.?I guarantee this problem isn?t going away anytime soon ? but I guarantee that we can?t not do anything about it,” said Nickolas.His words rang true for those like Joanne Olsen, a Saugus native, who stood before the crowd of more than 100 to share her story of battling her daughter?s heroin addiction, even moving her family to New Hampshire to get away from the problem. The crowd was silent listening to Olsen?s strife and heard the same pain in veteran affairs officer Andrew Biggio as he described seeing soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder sweating bullets in front of him in mid-winter as they suffered in the throes of the same addiction.?As important as it is to collect data, my biggest concern is that the numbers in the data don?t come close to what the problem is,” said Jeannie Meredith, School Committee member and opiate prevention advocate.The community meeting was first held since Nickolas and grant coordinators unveiled the plan in September. Nickolas explained that since that time, he and representatives from the community conducted 24 interviews and four focus groups with people in the community closest to the issue – first responders, addicts, recovered addicts, family members of addicts, law enforcement, veterans, etc. to compile data to find out what was unique to Saugus about the high rate of opiate overdoses. Grant coordinator Julia Newhall reported that through state data and the local interview, the group identified the highest users were white males between the ages of 20 and 50. They found that the top five factors driving the problem were the availability of drugs, underlying personal issues of users themselves, the stigma of being an addict, denial and lack of community readiness, and the acceptability that using drugs is a norm.Grant consultant Erica Clark had audience members place stickers on paper posted on the wall of the auditorium labeled with the factors to find which ones the community thought were the most impactful. The three that earned the most stickers were availability, denial and personal issues.After asking audience members if they were missing anything, Nickolas heard from audience members that early education for children on the effects of using drugs was necessary for effective prevention.Newhall said moving forward, the grant?s leading representatives group for the town will take the community feedback and data to the regional planning group for the four towns and form strategies to prevent and reduce overdoses, with plans to implement the strategies by July.In the meantime, Newhall said the group will be educating the community on what treatment is available for addicts and family members of addicts and where they can receive Narcan training, the nasal medication that can reverse an overdose.