To the editor:
After reading “Four youths overdose from opiates in Lynn” in the July 11 edition of The Daily Item, I was both sad and upset. Reading that four young Lynn children, our sons and daughters, our grandchildren, overdosed on heroin in a one-week period made me think: What can we do as a city to prevent this from happening again?
The article noted that all four of these kids have never been in trouble before, and that “they only recently started using opiates.” Could we as a city have intervened and prevented this from happening? Maybe. Maybe not.
First, it is long overdue that the city creates an independent office of recovery services at the mayoral level. This office would report directly to the mayor, streamline both existing programs and new initiatives, expand a diverse set of outreach workers on the streets to reach those in need, work with the Lynn Public Schools for early intervention and education, implement a systemic, strategic plan to reduce overdoses by working with the Lynn Drug Court and our nonprofit treatment providers, and ensure on-demand treatment is available to everyone who needs it.
Last year, there were 101 overdoses in Lynn in the first quarter. This year, there were 109. In 2021, 107,622 lives were lost in the United States due to drug overdoses. This is an average of nearly 295 people per day.
Drug overdoses are a leading cause of death for Americans ages 18-45, mostly due to opiates, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Opiate overdoses increased during the COVID pandemic with little notice.
Establishing a mayoral-level department of recovery services to coordinate the opiate epidemic in Lynn is long overdue. Boston and Revere have already done this.
Anyone that has had to deal with a loved one addicted to an opiate knows what these drugs do to people. The vicious and long road to recovery is not an easy one.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Castle
Councilor-at-large candidate
Lynn
