Public Hearing - May 2, 2014
1 BEFORE THE NEW YORK STATE SENATE MAJORITY COALITION
JOINT TASK FORCE ON HEROIN AND OPIOID ADDICTION
2 ------------------------------------------------------
3 PUBLIC FORUM: RICHMOND COUNTY
4 PANEL DISCUSSION ON STATEN ISLAND'S HEROIN EPIDEMIC
5 ------------------------------------------------------
6
Jewish Community Center of
7 Staten Island Auditorium
1297 Arthur Kill Road
8 Staten Island, New York 10312
9 May 2, 2014
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
10
11
12 PRESENT:
13
Senator Philip M. Boyle, Task Force Chairman
14 Chairman of the Senate Committee on Alcoholism and
Drug Abuse
15
16 Senator Andrew J. Lanza, Task Force Forum Moderator
Member of the Joint Task Force
17
Senator Diane J. Savino
18 Member of the Joint Task Force
19 Assemblyman Michael Cusick
20
21
22
23
24
25
2
1
INTRODUCTIONS - ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS: PAGE 16
2
Boris Natzen
3 Owner
Nate's Pharmacy
4
Dr. Daniel Messina
5 President and CEO
Richmond University Medical Center
6
Dr. Russell Joffe
7 Chair of Psychiatry
Staten Island University Hospital
8
Tony Ferreri
9 President and CEO
Staten Island University Hospital
10
Dr. Hillary Kunins
11 Acting Executive Director Commissioner
for Mental Hygiene
12 New York City Department of Health
and Mental Hygiene
13
Diane Arnett
14 President and CEO
Community Health Action of Staten Island
15
James Fiore
16 Resident of Dongan Hills, Staten Island
Resident of Community Health Action
17 Outpatient, Student of CSI
18 Candace Crupi
Barry Crupi
19 Parents
20 Brian Hunt
Parent
21 Resident of Princes Bay
22 Luke Nasta
Executive Director
23 Camelot Counseling
24 Jacqueline Fiore
Executive Director
25 YMCA Counseling Service
3
1
SPEAKERS (Continued): PAGE
2
Adrienne Abbate
3 Executive Director
Staten Island Partnership for
4 Community Wellness, and Project Director
for the Tackling Youth Substance Abuse
5 Initiative.
6 Gary Butchen
President and CEO
7 Bridge Back to Life Center
8 Edward Delatorre
Assistant Chief, Commanding Officer of the
9 Uniformed Force, NYPD, Staten Island
10 Dominick Dorazio
Captain
11 Commanding Officer, Staten Island Narcotics
12 Karen Varriale
Assistant District Attorney
13 Representing Dan Donovan and the
Richmond County District Attorney's Office
14
James J. Hunt
15 Acting Special Agent in charge of
New York Field Division,
16 Drug Enforcement Administration
17
PERSONAL STORIES PAGE 19
18
START OF PANELIST PARTICIPATION PAGE 40
19
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION AND Q&A PAGE 52
20
21
22 ---oOo---
23
24
25
4
1 SENATOR BOYLE: If everyone could stand just
2 for the Pledge of Allegiance, please.
3 (All present recite, as follows:)
4 "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
5 United States of America and to the republic for
6 which it stands, one nation under God,
7 indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
8 SENATOR LANZA: Good afternoon, everyone.
9 My name is Andrew Lanza, and I have the
10 privilege of serving the people of Staten Island in
11 the New York State Senate.
12 Before we begin the program, I would just
13 like to introduce the Chairman.
14 This is, as you know, we're here to meet as
15 part of the New York State Senate Task Force on
16 Heroin and Opioid Addiction.
17 Senator Phil Boyle from Long Island is the
18 Chairman of this Task Force, and he's been gracious
19 enough to come out -- come out here to
20 Staten Island, from Long Island, today, so let me
21 first introduce him.
22 [Applause.]
23 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you, Senator Lanza.
24 And I would like -- also like to thank
25 another member of the Heroin Task Force,
5
1 Senator Savino. Thank you very much.
2 And, Assemblyman Cusick and
3 Assemblywoman Malliotakis, and thank -- welcome --
4 it's a nice welcome to be here on Staten Island.
5 And thank you for the Jewish Community Center
6 for hosting this.
7 This is the ninth of 17 forums facing this
8 heroin and opioid epidemic we're looking at across
9 the state.
10 What we're specifically asking for -- and we
11 have a distinguished panel here, and I'm looking
12 forward to hearing their ideas -- focusing on the
13 areas of prevention, treatment, and law enforcement.
14 So we have a panel here that can give -- are,
15 basically, experts in each of those areas.
16 And for those of you in the audience, we'll
17 open it up for questions a little bit later. You
18 can write down a question.
19 And, whether you're a law-enforcement
20 official, an educator, a treatment provider, a
21 family member, an addict -- we've had numerous
22 testimony from each -- to say, "If I had an
23 opportunity to change a couple laws in
24 New York State, to help us combat this heroin
25 epidemic," please give us the ideas. That's what
6
1 we're looking for.
2 The Task Force is going to have a report due
3 June 1st, and we're going to have subsequent
4 legislation passed in the State Senate; and so we're
5 looking for ideas.
6 We're looking for a great exchange of ideas
7 today.
8 Thank you, Senator.
9 SENATOR LANZA: So, very quickly, we're here
10 to listen.
11 Let me just say, no one here needs to --
12 doesn't know how widespread and devastating this
13 problem of opioid addiction is, both here in
14 Staten Island and across the state.
15 It is a national epidemic.
16 In a 10-year period, leading up to 2012, in
17 New York City alone, 10,000 of our neighbors --
18 brothers and sister, mothers and fathers --
19 10,000 residents of New York City lost their lives
20 to opioid addiction and overdose.
21 "10,000."
22 When we hear of deaths occurring as a result
23 of other causes, they're often national debates,
24 there's discussion from the White House, from the
25 Attorney General, from every elected official across
7
1 the country.
2 We don't believe enough is being done to deal
3 with this problem that is taking so many of our
4 friends' and neighbors' and family members' lives.
5 On Staten Island alone, over the last year
6 and a half, more than 130 people lost their lives.
7 Just think about that: 130 of our neighbors
8 lost their lives.
9 More people died in New York City over the
10 last 10 years from opioid addiction than did in the
11 terrorist attacks of 9/11.
12 This is a situation, this is an epidemic,
13 that is affecting all of us, every one of us.
14 The gateway, interestingly enough, to heroin
15 addiction, as reported by a story in
16 "The Washington Post," 80 percent of all people who
17 try heroin first tried a prescription drug.
18 And, so, the availability and access to those
19 drugs has really become a gateway to the heroin
20 epidemic that we now see raging across the state,
21 the city, and the country.
22 And so, as Senator Boyle stated, the purpose
23 here is to bring stakeholders, experts, those who
24 are affected by this problem, together, so that we
25 can really begin to turn back the tide of this
8
1 epidemic.
2 The first step here, and the reason why
3 Assemblyman Cusick is here -- he's not in the
4 Senate, although he does live in my district, so
5 I'll pay attention to whatever signatures he starts
6 gathering -- but the reason he's here, he sits here,
7 too, as a government expert in terms of, given the
8 fact that's wrote the I-STOP Bill in the Assembly.
9 My good friend and colleague from
10 Staten Island, also representing parts of Brooklyn,
11 Senator Savino is a member of this Task Force. And,
12 I can't tell you how many conversations we've had
13 over the last several years, in terms of people we
14 know, conversations we've had.
15 This is -- this problem is reaching into
16 every single neighborhood, every single house, and,
17 enough is enough. We've got to do something about
18 it.
19 We've got, I think, the right group of people
20 here on Staten Island who have the expertise, the
21 commitment, the dedication, and the wisdom to come
22 together, to really start to turn this thing around.
23 So with that, I'm going to introduce
24 Senator Savino.
25 SENATOR SAVINO: Thank you, Senator Lanza.
9
1 [Applause.]
2 SENATOR SAVINO: I want to say a special
3 thank you to Senator Boyle, the Chair of this
4 substance-abuse committee in the New York State
5 Senate, and, of course, my colleagues on both sides
6 of me, Assemblyman Cusick and Senator Lanza.
7 And then, of course, all of the experts that
8 are here today, those of you in the audience that
9 are service providers, those of you who are family
10 members, those of you in law enforcement, you've
11 been dealing with this issue for a very long time.
12 You know, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, when
13 I was a caseworker working in the city's
14 child-welfare system, the vast majority of children
15 that we were taking away from parents were children
16 born with a positive toxicity. The majority of them
17 were born positive tox to cocaine.
18 The city was in the midst of a crack epidemic
19 then.
20 Drug trends come and go. You know, the drug
21 of choice that becomes the most abused has a
22 tendency to go through stages.
23 But there is one drug that has always been
24 with us, and one drug that always comes back no
25 matter what, and that is heroin.
10
1 So last -- two years ago, when we began the
2 fight to tackle the opioid-abuse and
3 prescription-drug problem that was led by these
4 two gentlemen on either side of me who wrote the
5 I-STOP law, a landmark piece of legislation, you
6 could almost predict, though, that we would have to
7 tackle this other issue, because these drugs that
8 young people are abusing now, those prescription
9 drugs that Senator Lanza talked about, they are far
10 more addictive than anyone ever could have imagined.
11 25 years ago, no one could have imagined a
12 thing called a "super-opioid."
13 No one could have seen the level of addiction
14 that Oxycontin could produce in people. And that's
15 what we're fighting against.
16 We're trying to find a way to restrict those
17 dangerous drugs, and we're trying to find a way to
18 prevent the next wave.
19 Heroin has always been with us, but it's more
20 dangerous now because of the level of addiction
21 that's out there, and the young people who have been
22 exposed to it.
23 And not just young people, old people, too
24 who have been exposed it to, because they've been
25 given a prescription for a drug that no one could
11
1 ever have imagined could be so addictive.
2 So, this, what we're doing today is so
3 important: Not just examining the trends, not just
4 talking about the effect, but also, trying to come
5 up with solutions, because this is going to
6 continue.
7 Until and -- unless and until we figure out
8 how to cure addiction, and I really wish those
9 pharmaceutical companies that spend so much money
10 researching and developing addictive drugs would
11 spend a little bit of that money on researching
12 addiction.
13 [Applause.]
14 SENATOR SAVINO: Maybe they could come up
15 with a pill that cures that.
16 But until they do, our work will not be done.
17 So I want to thank all of you for coming, and
18 participating.
19 And I want to a special shout-out to my good
20 friend, former
21 Councilman Dominic M. Riccia, Jr. [ph.], who is here
22 in the front row.
23 He and I worked together in Coney Island for
24 years, where there are several drug programs that
25 struggled with the issues of addiction. And heroin
12
1 is prevalent right there, too, so he knows what it's
2 like to represent people who are trying to fight
3 against this scourge.
4 Thank you, everyone.
5 [Applause.]
6 SENATOR BOYLE: Assemblyman Cusick, would you
7 like to say a couple of words?
8 ASSEMBLYMAN CUSICK: Thank you.
9 Thank you.
10 Thank you, Senator Boyle, for coming to
11 Staten Island.
12 I just want to welcome Phil.
13 Phil is a Senator now, but Phil did come from
14 the State Assembly, so I want to take credit for
15 Phil being a member of the State Assembly.
16 I feel a little outnumbered up here.
17 But, I just want to thank Senator Lanza and
18 Senator Savino for making sure that this Task Force
19 had a meeting here on Staten Island, because it's
20 very important.
21 Many of the folks in the audience, sitting
22 out, we know each other's faces and names. We know
23 each other from fighting the good fight when it
24 comes to the epidemic with prescription drugs, with
25 heroin, with substance abuse.
13
1 And it is a team effort, and it is a
2 community that has to come together, to make sure
3 that we can fight this together.
4 You know, and part of this is, there was
5 mention of the reason why I'm up here is that, I was
6 the author in Assembly of the I-STOP legislation,
7 and teamed up with Senator Lanza to get that passed.
8 That started with, not as big as this
9 roundtable, but it started as a roundtable.
10 It started as a roundtable at the South Shore
11 YMCA, about, in 2010 or 2011. And, it was a smaller
12 group, but it was from discussions of community
13 groups. It was from discussions of counselors. It
14 was from discussions of medical professionals. It
15 was discussions from our law enforcement.
16 This is an issue that is fought on many
17 fronts.
18 You have the enforcement front, you have the
19 legislative front, and you have the treatment front.
20 And there are many other fronts to fight this
21 epidemic.
22 The -- you think about I-STOP, is that --
23 the numbers aren't out yet, but, we are very
24 confident that it is working, and that it is cutting
25 down on doctor shopping, and that it is cutting down
14
1 on the availability of the prescription drugs.
2 And I do have to say, that this man sitting
3 next to me, Mr. Luke Nasta, had said it at our
4 first roundtable that Andrew and I had at the
5 South Shore YMCA; he said, that: You know, we'll be
6 successful in this, but things with heroin are
7 still -- they're on the rise as we speak.
8 And the heroin issue was always there when we
9 tackled the prescription drug. And it was all part
10 of this.
11 And although we cut down on the -- we focused
12 on the enforcement and we focused on the doctor
13 shopping.
14 We always had in the back of our heads that
15 the next step would be the treatment, and providing
16 the proper treatment for those who had this
17 addiction to heroin.
18 So I want to just thank you, Senator Lanza,
19 Senator Savino, and Senator Boyle, for having me as
20 part of this panel, and I look forward to the
21 discussions today.
22 Thank you.
23 SENATOR LANZA: And before we turn this
24 over --
25 Thank you, Assemblyman.
15
1 Before we turn this back over to the
2 Chairman, Senator Boyle, let me tell you how this is
3 going to work today.
4 We're going to hear from a number of
5 categories of panelists. We're going to hear from
6 some of our neighbors, parents, and even someone
7 who's fighting addiction.
8 So, we're going to hear from those who are
9 personally affected.
10 We're going to hear from public-health
11 experts, from both hospitals here, and others, here
12 on Staten Island.
13 We're going to from our law enforcement who
14 are really at the front lines in terms of some of
15 the aspects of this epidemic.
16 We're going to hear from, as
17 Assemblyman Cusick just mentioned, folks like
18 Luke Nasta, experts on recovery and treatment.
19 And, finally, there will be a conclusion.
20 So, Senator Boyle.
21 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you.
22 SENATOR LANZA: And I just have to do this,
23 but, someone who helped work with us on the
24 I-STOP Bill is here, Former Assemblyman Lou Tobacco.
25 I want to acknowledge his presence.
16
1 [Applause.]
2 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you very much, Senator.
3 And, now, if we could just have the panelists
4 briefly introduce yourself and where you're from.
5 We can go around, and we can make statements
6 a little bit later, but, just, we want to know where
7 you're from and your current position.
8 BORIS NATZEN: Boris Natzen, the owner of
9 Nate's Pharmacy.
10 DR. DANIEL J. MESSINA: Dan Messina,
11 president and CEO of Richmond University Medical
12 Center.
13 DR. RUSSELL JOFFE: Russell Joffe, chair of
14 Psychiatry at Staten Island University Hospital.
15 ANTHONY C. FERRERI: Tony Ferreri, president
16 and CEO of Staten Island University Hospital.
17 DIANE ARNETT: Diane Arnett, president and
18 CEO, Community Health Action of Staten Island.
19 JAMES FIORE, JR.: James Fiore, resident of
20 Dongan Hills, Staten Island. And I'm a resident of
21 Community Health Action Outpatient, student of CSI.
22 CANDACE CRUPI: Candace Crupi. I'm
23 Jonathan Crupi's mom.
24 BARRY CRUPI: Barry Crupi, Jonathan's father.
25 BRIAN HUNT: My name is Brian Hunt, and I'm a
17
1 broken-hearted father. I'm from Princes Bay.
2 Two months ago today, I lost my son to a
3 heroin overdose.
4 LUKE NASTA: Luke Nasta, executive director
5 of Camelot Counseling.
6 [Applause.]
7 JACQUELINE FIORE: Jackie Fiore, executive
8 director of the YMCA Counseling Service.
9 [Applause.]
10 ADRIENNE ABBATE: Adrienne Abbate,
11 executive director of the Staten Island Partnership
12 for Community Wellness, and the project director for
13 the Tackling Youth Substance Abuse Initiative.
14 [Applause.]
15 GARY BUTCHEN: I'm Gary Butchen, the
16 president and CEO of Bridge Back To Life Center.
17 We're a network of outpatient programs here
18 on Staten Island, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and
19 Long Island.
20 [Applause.]
21 ASST. CHIEF EDWARD DELATORRE: Assistant
22 Chief Edward Delatorre, commanding officer of the
23 uniformed force, NYPD, Staten Island.
24 CAPTAIN DOMINICK DORAZIO: Captain
25 Dominick Dorazio, commanding officer of
18
1 Staten Island Narcotics.
2 KAREN VARRIALE: Karen Varriale,
3 assistant district attorney, representing Dan
4 Donovan and the Richmond County DA's Office.
5 JAMES J. HUNT: James Hunt. I'm the acting
6 special agent in charge of New York Field Division,
7 Drug Enforcement Administration.
8 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you very much, ladies
9 and gentlemen, and we look forward to your input.
10 You know, when we hear a lot about this
11 heroin epidemic, as Senator Lanza said, it's a
12 nationwide, and certainly a statewide problem in
13 New York.
14 And coming from Long Island myself, we always
15 heard about a particular area of difficulty in --
16 with this heroin epidemic, and that was
17 Staten Island.
18 We have a big problem on Long Island, but
19 Staten Island was really a center of the tragedy of
20 this epidemic.
21 And, we hear a lot about statistics and
22 numbers, but, these are human faces behind that
23 story. There's losses, there's personal tragedies.
24 And that's why we asked some family members
25 to accompany us today, to tell us about their story.
19
1 And I would like to introduce
2 Mr. Brian Hunt.
3 BRIAN HUNT: Thank you.
4 Like I said, two months ago, I lost my son to
5 a heroin addiction. And needless to say, my family
6 is devastated.
7 We found out the hard way, the first time my
8 son overdosed.
9 And we did what most parents do, is we wanted
10 to keep it quiet.
11 And one of the reasons is -- that we're not
12 hearing a lot about this epidemic, is that a lot of
13 parents want to turn around and keep it hidden
14 because they're embarrassed and ashamed.
15 Now, let me ask a question here:
16 Who in this audience knows someone that had
17 passed away from a drug addiction? Raise your hand.
18 Keep your hands up, and keep them up high.
19 I want this panel to look at this, and let
20 this be the face of what this drug addiction is
21 doing.
22 Not me. I'm a father, that's all. I'm not
23 an expert.
24 But I will tell you --
25 You can put your hands down.
20
1 I will tell you that this has to be looked at
2 at three fronts:
3 The first front is alcohol.
4 Understand, that this all starts with
5 alcohol, underaged drinking. They get the liquor
6 from the home. They get the liquor from their
7 friends.
8 When the liquor is not available, someone
9 turns around and says: Hey, remember when my mom
10 hurt her back? The doctor gave her these pills,
11 they're prescription. They made my mother feel
12 great. It's from the doctor. Take one. Take two.
13 Next thing you know they're addicted to the
14 pills.
15 They're available; they're in your medicine
16 cabinets. That's where they get them from.
17 Now they have to go purchase them.
18 Now you have no more money. You can't afford
19 20, 40 dollars a pill.
20 What do you do?
21 Someone pretending to be your friend turns
22 around and says to you: Hey, I have some heroin.
23 I do it all the time. Look at me.
24 Meanwhile, he doesn't do it.
25 He says: Take it. It's cheap: $5, $10.
21
1 They feel great, but you want to know
2 something? Once you put it up your nose or you put
3 it in your arm, that's it.
4 I want everyone to go online and look up
5 "Miss Heroin," M-I-S-S Heroin, and see what that is
6 all about.
7 Because, you read that, that's what -- that
8 was my son, exactly what took place. And it's a
9 look into the future.
10 If you went on vacation, and I said to you,
11 "Let me give you a look at what that vacation will
12 turn out to be," and while you're looking, you're
13 seeing:
14 You went on vacation, everything was nice.
15 You got in your hotel. You got in your car and
16 you're going to the beach. And then, all of a
17 sudden, you saw you got in an accident. And maybe
18 some members of your family did not survive.
19 Would you go on that vacation? Probably not.
20 But if you did go on that vacation, guess
21 what? You wouldn't go down that road where you had
22 that accident. You'd go someplace else.
23 And what is that? You have knowledge.
24 And that's what stops this epidemic, is
25 knowledge.
22
1 When our children were growing up, when we
2 sent them off to school, or we sent them to the
3 park, what did we tell them?
4 Don't talk to strangers. Don't take anything
5 from a stranger. If someone wants to give you
6 something, yell, scream, tell someone. Tell a
7 teacher, tell a cop, tell the crossing guard, tell a
8 parent.
9 Well, that still holds true today for our
10 older kids, but the problem is, it's not only
11 strangers. The people that are doing and selling
12 drugs could be the people in this front row, the
13 people in the back row, could be somebody on this
14 panel.
15 The people that are doing it are friends and
16 neighbors, and they are hiding in plain sight.
17 I can tell you I just found out, four houses
18 past me, behind me, father and son were selling
19 drugs. They're now not around anymore, but they
20 sold drugs to my son. That's five houses down.
21 So we could be a mother, a father, a sister,
22 a cousin. It's not your typical guy that you could
23 point out, He's a drug addict or a junky.
24 My son wasn't a junky.
25 My son was a good kid. He was trying to make
23
1 a way for himself.
2 Someone pretending to be his friend gave him
3 something that was bad for him.
4 And young kids today think everybody's their
5 friend.
6 But I can ask this panel and I can ask
7 everyone here: I'll bet you, 2-to-1, you can count
8 your friends on one hand. True friends.
9 And as I told the kids at my son's wake,
10 I said: Listen, if you're a true friend, and you
11 see someone in trouble, say something, do something.
12 If they give you a hard time, go to their parents
13 and tell the parent. "Put the people in the know,"
14 as the kids say. Let people know about it.
15 The more people that knew about my son having
16 an addiction, the less people would invite my son to
17 a party where there's going be alcohol.
18 And when my son died, I found out, my son,
19 30 days before he died, he went to a Super Bowl
20 party, and had a drink. And 30 days later my son
21 overdosed on heroin.
22 So, I don't want you ever standing here with
23 me. I don't even want to be here. I would rather
24 go back three months and do something different.
25 When my son passed, I was not home.
24
1 Had I been home, maybe my son would be alive
2 today. But I was taking care of my father-in-law
3 who was supposedly dying at that point in time.
4 Unfortunately, he died ten days after that,
5 so we had a double-whammy in the life.
6 And I never told him about my son's
7 addiction.
8 But, we have to let people know. We have to
9 get people help.
10 My son went to the Y. They helped him
11 tremendously.
12 Adrienne from Tackling Youth Substance Abuse,
13 I've been to one of their presentations.
14 Let me tell you something: Get involved with
15 these people.
16 Tackling -- with Adrienne, Tackling Youth
17 Substance Abuse, they'll teach you how to go out in
18 the world and talk to people, and explain to people
19 what this drug addiction is doing to this island.
20 But you have to get involved.
21 And you have to be a parent. Don't -- you
22 don't want to be my best -- I'm your best friend to
23 your son or your daughter.
24 Be a parent, do what you're supposed to:
25 Protect them, guide them.
25
1 And I will tell you, as far as, if you really
2 want to know what we need to do, if I know I had a
3 snake in my house, and it was going to hurt my
4 family, what's the best way for me to get rid of
5 that snake? I'm going to cut its head off.
6 These people here need to stop the influx of
7 drugs onto this island.
8 The people that are selling the drugs, you
9 need to have a stiffer law. People selling drugs,
10 don't slap them on the wrist, become a first-time,
11 you know, dealer.
12 A drug dealer and a first-time drug dealer
13 are the same to me. If you sell drugs, in my
14 opinion, you should go to jail forever.
15 And you know what? They say we don't have
16 the room? You have people sitting on death row for
17 20 years. Let's move it along, or build more jails,
18 but you need to get the people off the street.
19 We need to let people know on Staten Island,
20 you sell drugs, eyes are on you. Someone's going to
21 say something.
22 So we need to attack that on three fronts.
23 The treatment, we need to go back to the
24 schools.
25 What happened to having No-Drug Week in
26
1 schools?
2 These kids are learning about drugs on the
3 streets.
4 Get back in, teach these kids what drugs are
5 about.
6 The more knowledge you have, the better you
7 are prepared to turn around and say: No, sir,
8 I don't want that. I'm not taking that.
9 And understand, the drug dealers and this
10 epidemic does not care how much money you have,
11 where you live, or what job you have. It's going to
12 affect everybody.
13 And I'm sure that -- I'm sure if I asked this
14 panel to raise their hand, they would be able to
15 tell you, "Yeah, we know someone."
16 So they're familiar with it.
17 So we now need these people to put their
18 heads together, and with you, with your suggestions,
19 to be able to come up with a plan to, I say, fight
20 the drugs coming in here.
21 Arrest the people that are dealing the drugs,
22 put them in jail for life; get them off the street.
23 And, educate our children, going forward.
24 Plus, you need to financially support the
25 groups that are helping. Like this young man here,
27
1 and that group in the back, they need to be
2 supported.
3 We need to help the people that are in crisis
4 now.
5 We can always go back and help the kids that
6 are young, and make them understand what damage it
7 does do.
8 But we need to set -- we need to support the
9 agencies that help the people with the addiction.
10 Anybody here quit smoking? [Raises hand.]
11 I quit smoking. Damned hard; right?
12 Imagine trying to quit heroin. That's really
13 hard.
14 And my son fought that fight. He went away,
15 he got treatment. He was clean for nine months.
16 I still don't know what caused my son to do
17 what he did, but at the end of the day, on my son's
18 death certificate, it says, "acute heroin
19 intoxication."
20 And that's my story.
21 And for the rest of my life, I have to live
22 without my son.
23 You know, we have memories. I can't put my
24 arms around a memory.
25 So, this epidemic has taken my son, much like
28
1 the Crupi family.
2 And I don't want anyone else, and we'll share
3 in that, we do not want anyone else to share what we
4 have. Believe me.
5 There is a piece of us missing, and people
6 say, "time heals all wounds."
7 No, it does not, because, there is a hole in
8 us. There is a piece of us gone forever.
9 Please, if you know something, you see
10 something, say something. Step up.
11 If you're a friend, tell someone, because
12 people need help. We cannot -- we cannot put this
13 underneath the carpet any longer.
14 I will applaud Senator Lanza for getting --
15 making it harder to get pills, but if I wanted to be
16 critical, I would say we should have went after
17 heroin first, and then go after the pills.
18 But, they did a magnificent job doing that,
19 and I applaud everyone.
20 And I applaud everyone here for coming forth,
21 to put forth a plan to finally get rid of the
22 epidemic in Staten Island.
23 Thank you, and God bless you.
24 [Applause.]
25 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you so much,
29
1 Mr. Hunt. Thank you for sharing your story.
2 We now hear from Miss Candace Crupi.
3 CANDACE CRUPI: And, good afternoon.
4 I lost Jonathan in Conosco once, when he
5 was 4, and it took me 20 minutes to find him.
6 By the time I saw him, I was frantic.
7 I smacked him on the bottom and told him never to
8 wander from me again.
9 And with tears in his eyes, Johnnie looked at
10 me and said: Mom, you're making me hit my children.
11 And I thought that was kind of profound.
12 He was a happy, loving caring kid.
13 When he was 7, he wanted to be a priest, but
14 settled to be an altar boy.
15 At age 9, the priest asked for volunteers
16 because there was a shortage of ushers, and the next
17 week he came to church in his suit to help out.
18 Jonathan was a high-achiever. There was so
19 much he wanted to do.
20 He always had high grades. He was a Boy
21 Scout. He earned a black belt in karate. He played
22 every sport imaginable. He took music lessons, he
23 played.
24 My whole job was just to usher him from place
25 to place. My car looked like a changing room.
30
1 Life with Johnnie was always an adventure.
2 That all stopped the day, when he was in
3 seventh grade, at the age of 12, he was introduced
4 to alcohol. His first experience with liquor put
5 him in the hospital, where he stayed for three days
6 because of alcohol poisoning.
7 That was the beginning of John's addiction.
8 He quickly got bored of liquor and started
9 smoking pot.
10 When that didn't do enough, he started on
11 pills.
12 By the time he was 16, he was hopeless --
13 helplessly addicted to oxycodone.
14 The only reason he went to heroin was because
15 he couldn't afford oxycodone anymore.
16 I can't count the detox, rehab, and
17 counseling stints he did.
18 Jonathan was once given a choice of drug
19 rehab, which he knew would be nine months; or
20 four months in jail, which he knew would be actually
21 two months for good behavior.
22 Well, he chose jail.
23 We were always told that he wouldn't stop
24 unless he wants to. Or, he has to hit bottom before
25 he'll stop.
31
1 We kicked John out for days or weeks. He
2 would go into the woods or sneak in stairwells to
3 sleep.
4 How far is bottom?
5 The problem is, how they -- how can they want
6 to stop if they can't think straight?
7 These drugs take over their whole way of
8 thinking until they just can't think for themselves
9 anymore.
10 And in the obituaries, there's a certain age
11 group, from 17 to 55. And if you see "died at
12 home," you know it was either a drug overdose or
13 just too many years doing drugs.
14 Everybody knows it, but nobody says anything
15 because it's taboo.
16 The families are left behind, feeling alone
17 and frustrated and embarrassed because of their
18 loved one's addiction. And we need to fix this.
19 You cannot define a person because of their
20 addiction. You need to remember them as they were
21 before the addiction.
22 Every single person, including my son
23 Jonathan, started their life out on the good foot.
24 They were happy, hard working, eager to please
25 people, that had dreams and ambitions, and loved
32
1 their families, until they met drugs.
2 I will always be grateful to the many people
3 who have tried to help John, but, somehow, I think
4 the approach to treating addiction has to be
5 different because we're losing too many loved ones.
6 I think drug rehab should be funded by the
7 pharmaceutical companies. They're making ridiculous
8 amounts of money, and they're reaping all the
9 benefits but sharing none of our sorrow.
10 What about the new and stronger oxycodone?
11 Instead of Percocet or Vicodin, which is a
12 about a third oxycodone and two-thirds analgesic,
13 the FDA just okayed a new pill which is 100 percent
14 oxycodone.
15 What's wrong with this picture? What are
16 they thinking?
17 The drug companies also came out with the
18 nasal spray called "naloxone" that can block the
19 effects of an opioid overdose. And they're handing
20 them out and training people to use them, which is
21 great.
22 The drug companies are trying to make us
23 think that they're doing everything they can to
24 help, which couldn't be farther from the truth,
25 though.
33
1 I'm afraid it's going to give the families a
2 false sense of security because, unless you're there
3 when the person takes the heroin, it only takes a
4 couple of minutes for the drugs to start working.
5 Whether it's snorted or shot, it doesn't
6 matter, both ways are deadly.
7 Once a drug starts working, their breathing
8 slows until they stop breathing all together.
9 The whole process takes no more than
10 15 minutes before that person dies.
11 And I know this, because the overdose that
12 killed Jonathan wasn't his first.
13 Johnnie had a tattoo on his arm, and I loved
14 it. It said: Every angel has a past, and every sin
15 has a future.
16 Let's work at giving these people so
17 helplessly addicted to these drug a future.
18 We need to erase the stigma or the
19 embarrassment and treat these people like the loved
20 ones that they are, and maybe they'll go for help.
21 Thank you.
22 [Applause.]
23 BRIAN HUNT: Can I just interject for a
24 moment?
25 Candy said some very potent things.
34
1 And, you know, I want everyone to understand
2 that drug -- drugs and the addiction is an illness.
3 It's not a handicap. And you shouldn't look upon
4 someone as being deformed in any way.
5 It's an illness. Just like every other
6 illness, just like cancer, it's the same thing, and
7 it has to be treated.
8 But I also wanted to say, for Mr. Hunt, and
9 this board here:
10 I was just informed the other night, when
11 I went to the funeral for the John [unintelligible],
12 the young boy that passed, and nobody knows why he
13 passed yet, and I was told that there is a new
14 synthetic drug out there today. It's in New Jersey,
15 and the chances are, it's going to be coming here.
16 It's a little tab that you put on your
17 finger, and you put it on your tongue or on your
18 gum. It's called an "N Bomb."
19 And you know where the kids were ordering it
20 from? Online.
21 That's been, obviously, stopped, but I'm sure
22 there's ways of getting it.
23 So, I think we need to be on the lookout for
24 that, also.
25 It's like LSD, and it, just -- you know, it
35
1 gives you hallucinations.
2 But, I do have -- I do have a website that
3 will explain to you everything about it, if anybody
4 wants it. It's a news reporter and also a police
5 officer.
6 And it is killing kids, 15, 16, 17 years old.
7 Thank you.
8 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you, Mr. Hunt.
9 And thank you, Mrs. Crupi.
10 We will now hear from a young man in
11 recovery, James Fiori, Jr.
12 James?
13 JAMES FIORE, JR.: Good afternoon.
14 Oh, the mic. Sorry.
15 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
16 My name is James Fiori.
17 This afternoon, I'm going to share a part of
18 my story, struggles, and hope with you all.
19 I was born January 1, 1992; an ordinary boy
20 with a middle-class Brooklyn family, who moved to
21 Staten Island to have a better life for me and my
22 little sister.
23 Unfortunately, no matter where I moved, I was
24 unable to get away from the addictive genes passed
25 to me from my parents.
36
1 Regardless, Staten Island was my new home,
2 and I truly enjoyed my childhood, until one fateful
3 day, when I was about 14 at the time. Sometimes
4 I would sneak a cigarette, or a pull the joint with
5 some friends.
6 At the time, that was the extent of my drug
7 use. Like a lot of my generation, at that young
8 age, I was experimenting.
9 Then came the day, for better or worse, that
10 shaped the rest of my life, and so many more lives
11 on this island.
12 I took my first Percocet at about 14.
13 Excuse me.
14 I loved the feeling it gave me, and my
15 addictive genes kicked right in.
16 My addiction progressed quickly, from taking
17 a Perc or two, to snorting oxycodone, and Oxycontin,
18 and needing any opiate just not to be sick.
19 Very quickly, my life had been consumed by
20 the horrors of opiate addiction and its dependence.
21 I was raised a good young man, with respect,
22 loyalty, and a good set of core values.
23 When I was using, however, that all went out
24 the window.
25 As my tolerance grew, I would do things to
37
1 get pills I would never have dreamed.
2 I sold all my valuable possessions, and stole
3 from my parents and friends.
4 In the end, I lost all of my true friends
5 because they couldn't bear to see the drug addict
6 I had become.
7 This for me was the saddest and most
8 oppressing point I've yet been in in my young life,
9 because I knew what I was doing was wrong but my
10 desire for opioids outweighed my conscience.
11 Of course, the consequences of my addiction
12 caught up with me and I was arrested. I went
13 through the system, and had a 4-year battle with
14 courts, lawyers, and prison.
15 I navigated through the system in order to
16 keep felony charges off my record that would have
17 permanently scared my future.
18 At this time, I would like to thank my
19 mother, Marie Fiori, for not giving up on me through
20 these dark years.
21 When I was released from prison, I was full
22 of hope, but people, places, and things I couldn't
23 stay away from.
24 In a short time, I was back in the grips of
25 full-blown addiction.
38
1 Thank God, at this time, a few people saw a
2 light in myself that I thought was extinguished long
3 ago; mainly, my counselor, Naomi; and the director
4 of the Community Health Action,
5 Angela Antonaccio [ph.].
6 Through their guidance and counseling, I was
7 encouraged to go on Suboxone, which, at the time,
8 was the best thing I could have done.
9 Excuse me.
10 Since I've been taking my Suboxone as
11 prescribed, and attending my daily groups at
12 Community Health Action, I've been able to turn my
13 life around, and the obsession to use pills and
14 heroin are now gone.
15 Now I go to college and outpatient five days
16 a week. I'm not perfect, and I still have slip-ups,
17 but, overall, for the first time in years, I'm truly
18 happy.
19 I am now starting toward becoming a counselor
20 at CSI.
21 In my story, I want to stress the importance
22 of Suboxone, with groups, and the willingness to
23 stop using, as a major factor in the success of my
24 recovery, thus far.
25 With all respect, and sincerity, I would dare
39
1 broach one last topic with the ladies and gentlemen
2 in this room.
3 It is my firm belief that Suboxone can help
4 other young people to fight the disease of opiate
5 addiction and maintain successful clean time, just
6 as it has helped me.
7 I humbly ask a policy of Staten Island Task
8 and Treatment Court clients having to be cut off
9 Suboxone in order to complete their mandated term of
10 treatment, to be changed.
11 I hate to quote statistics, but,
12 statistically speaking, the highest rate of lasting
13 sobriety for long-term opiate addicts on Suboxone is
14 for about two years, coupled with talk therapy. And
15 that has a success rate of about 50 percent.
16 A 50 percent success rate may not seem
17 significant, but it is significantly higher than any
18 other modern method of opiate treatment.
19 It is my firm belief that responsible
20 individuals who take their medicine, not to get
21 high, but as a chance to live -- excuse me, but as a
22 chance to live a sober life, should be able to have
23 a choice to stay on their medication, with their own
24 willingness to stop, instead of being prematurely
25 forced to be taken off of Suboxone before they can
40
1 graduate their mandated terms.
2 I know policy change is not made easy, but
3 with hope and education, I believe that this policy
4 can be improved upon, for the sons, daughters,
5 fathers, and mothers on our island who are suffering
6 from this deadly disease of opioid addiction.
7 In closing, I would like to thank the whole
8 staff of Community Health Action for supporting me
9 through both my failures and successes, and for
10 continuing to be a guiding force and sober-support
11 network in my life.
12 I would also like to thank all of the people
13 on this panel, the mothers, fathers, Senators,
14 Councilmen, family members; everyone here for
15 listening to me.
16 Thank you, and respectfully and sincerely,
17 James Fiore.
18 [Applause.]
19 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you so much, James.
20 Thank you for having the courage to share
21 your story, and giving us some good idea, actually,
22 for some legislation to look at as the panel
23 progresses.
24 I would like to now open it up to the
25 panelists.
41
1 Our first area is going to be on public
2 health, and the effect that the heroin epidemic and
3 opioid epidemic is having on our hospitals, on our
4 treatment facilities.
5 If we could start with, perhaps,
6 Dr. Messina, can you tell -- give us a little bit
7 of your insights from Richmond University Medical
8 Center?
9 DR. DANIEL J. MESSINA: Good afternoon.
10 Thank you Senator Lanza and Senator Savino
11 for organizing this critical forum.
12 Staten Island has surpassed the rest of
13 New York City, with 10.2 fatal overdoses per 100,000
14 people.
15 Heroin deaths were higher in the past years
16 on our own mid-island and south shore than in any
17 other neighborhood citywide.
18 South Beach and Tottenville were in the top
19 five neighborhoods in New York City.
20 Thanks to city and state elected officials,
21 naloxone was introduced, and the internasal drug is
22 credited for saving lives of heroin overdoses if
23 administered properly.
24 The drug is now carried by police officers in
25 Staten Island neighborhoods as part of a pilot
42
1 program.
2 As of yesterday, Richmond University Medical
3 Center's EMTs are all equipped with naloxone and
4 trained to administer this life-saving medication.
5 We were the first in the New York City 9/11
6 system to be fully trained and carrying naloxone, a
7 step we took to protect our community and stem the
8 rise of overdoses seen in our borough.
9 Richmond University Medical Center has made
10 critical changes to our emergency department
11 guidelines, to minimize the number of opioid pain
12 killers prescribed upon discharge.
13 We have further instilled in our emergency
14 physicians that no long-acting opioids are to be
15 utilized unless clearly necessary for proper
16 treatment.
17 The new guidelines are part of the
18 New York City Emergency Department Discharge
19 Guidelines. The set of nine guidelines, along with
20 clinical judgment and expertise, can help reverse
21 opioid dependence and overdose.
22 We are currently working with all of our
23 physicians to implement new prescribing guidelines
24 within their practices, as well, to minimize legal
25 access to opioids, since the risk of addiction or
43
1 misuse is so widespread.
2 Through our participation in the DEA's
3 Drug Take-Back Program, Richmond University Medical
4 Center collected more than 300 pounds of unwanted,
5 expired, and unused prescriptions.
6 The Joint Senate Task Force is a significant
7 step towards awareness and action.
8 My staff at Richmond University Medical
9 Center looks forward to working with everyone on the
10 panel, and with you, Senator Lanza, Senator Savino,
11 to reverse trends and to educate Staten Island
12 residents.
13 Despite recent overdoses of high-profile
14 celebrities in the media -- recently, Philip Seymour
15 Hoffman, we all read the story -- many residents of
16 our boroughs believe that heroin addiction cannot
17 happen in our quiet neighborhood.
18 It is happening here; just as it's happening
19 even more dramatically in that quiet little Rutland,
20 Vermont, neighborhood upstate.
21 "New York Times" Reporter Kathleen Seeley
22 described this crisis as a call to arms.
23 And a recent "Rolling Stone" article
24 described Vermont at the new face -- as the new face
25 of heroin addiction.
44
1 Vermont's Governor Pete Shumlin devoted his
2 entire State Of The State message to what he said
3 was a full-blown heroin crisis.
4 It's critical to pay attention to Vermont, as
5 it paints a picture of the consequences of heroin
6 addiction in a small community.
7 Richmond University Medical Center is
8 committed to being part of the solution: working to
9 educate borough residents, working with our elected
10 officials, and acting as a resource in the
11 development of new policy solutions that will stem
12 the tide of opioid addiction.
13 Treatment is available for all those faced
14 with addiction.
15 Our Silverstein Clinic and Rehab Center is
16 available for those 18 and older. And we have a
17 24-hour hotline that can be called by anyone.
18 Again, in Rutland, Vermont, what struck me
19 was, the director of psychiatric services, a
20 gentleman by the name of Jeff McKee [ph.], and
21 I quote him, "There is probably not a person in
22 Rutland County whose life has not been affected by
23 opioid addiction in one way or another."
24 And I think the same applies to us here in
25 Staten Island. And I can include myself.
45
1 I've had three of my very close relatives die
2 of drug overdoses over the last many years,
3 beginning in 1977, on Mother's Day. Ten years
4 later, his brother. And then, about seven years
5 ago, my cousin who is a pharmacist.
6 And, again, like Mr. Brian Hunt just said,
7 these were great, great kids.
8 I am unsettled at the epidemic that continues
9 to build before us; however, I am optimistic, as
10 I look forward to this panel of experts to devote
11 the energy and resources needed to save our
12 residents.
13 And I look forward, I'm back on my fifth day
14 from 30 years in New Jersey, and I'm really pleased
15 to be back in my hometown to, hopefully, help along
16 the way. Thank you.
17 [Applause.]
18 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you very much, Doctor.
19 Now, this is not really a hearing. It's more
20 of a forum.
21 So, please, anybody chime in, if you have
22 something to add, or -- to whatever's being said.
23 I'd ask the same question of Dr. Kunins,
24 regarding your experience with --
25 LUKE NASTA: if I could just say something?
46
1 SENATOR BOYLE: Oh, please.
2 LUKE NASTA: I just want to applaud you,
3 Dr. Messina, for talking about how it affected
4 your own family, because, as long as we get it out
5 from under the table, and we put it here, we've got
6 a chance of controlling it and beating it.
7 And, you know, thank you for leading the way,
8 and being a role model.
9 DR. DANIEL J. MESSINA: Thank you.
10 And could I could say, again, like Mr. Hunt
11 mentioned, it sticks with us.
12 You know, as an only child, those were my
13 three -- believe it or not, my three closest
14 cousins, so they were semi-brothers to me when
15 I grew up.
16 So it's something, a piece, that will never
17 go away, and that's missing.
18 [Applause.]
19 DR. HILLARY KUNINS: Thank you,
20 Senators Lanza and Savino, and I was very happy to
21 be able to participate both yesterday at this event
22 in Manhattan, and today here on Staten Island.
23 I'm Dr. Hillary Kunins. I'm the acting
24 executive deputy commissioner for mental hygiene at
25 New York City Department of Health and
47
1 Mental Hygiene.
2 We at the Health Department at the city have
3 been, as you all know, very concerned and active in
4 addressing issues of prescription drugs and heroin.
5 My colleague from RUMC just mentioned,
6 according to our health-surveillance data, and
7 nationally, there were 16,000 overdose deaths in
8 this country.
9 We see them as preventable.
10 And, surely, as we hear today, and from our
11 colleagues, really tragically take the lives of
12 people mostly way too young to be facing this
13 serious illness.
14 In New York City, as you heard, rates of
15 unintentional overdose deaths have increased
16 233 percent from opioid analgesics since 2000.
17 And in the last two years, heroin-overdose
18 deaths in our city have increased 84 percent.
19 Staten Island has been hardest hit in terms
20 of both heroin and opioid analgesics of all of our
21 boroughs.
22 I just want to say, also, personally, as a
23 physician, where I cared for patients both in
24 primary-care and in addiction-treatment settings for
25 more than 16 years in the Bronx, caring for people
48
1 with this illness is really one of the most
2 professionally satisfying parts of my work as a
3 clinician, and having the ability to see folks
4 recover. And some of the tragic losses that I had
5 the honor of witnessing, and talking to families, is
6 a really important part of my career as a physician.
7 And I think I want to share that to say, that
8 this disease is greatly stigmatized, both the
9 disease and its treatment.
10 And by coming out both personally and
11 professionally to say that this is an important
12 piece of our work together, I think that this is why
13 it's really great to hear from families, people
14 affected, to hear from people in the profession, to
15 say how important this work is to all of us.
16 And convening this Task Force in this way is
17 a terrific opportunity to be able to do that.
18 I also want to highlight my work and our work
19 at the Health Department.
20 In addition to the surveillance that we do,
21 we are very proud to have been able to participate
22 in an effort that city and state and federal
23 colleagues called "Rx Stat," part of the Mayor's
24 Task Force on Prescription Pain-Killer Abuse started
25 in the last administration.
49
1 Housed at the Health Department, Rx Stat is a
2 public-health and public-safety collaboration --
3 some of our colleagues and collaborators are here
4 today -- that enables key data around opioid
5 surveillance in real time. Multiple and innovative
6 data sources are used to give a comprehensive view
7 of the opioid problem in New York City.
8 Importantly, this collaboration allows us,
9 across agencies, across state and city, to
10 coordinate efforts, think of solutions, and act in a
11 timely fashion.
12 As you know, the Health Department supports
13 access to naloxone, which you've already heard
14 mentioned today. We support training and naloxone
15 distribution to laypeople trained as overdose
16 responsers -- responders.
17 Since 2009, we are aware of more than
18 500 overdose reversals conducted by laypeople, and
19 we know that this is much underreported.
20 We have also collaborated, as you'll no doubt
21 hear, with New York City Police Department in a
22 pilot program here on Staten Island, and we are
23 aware of three reversals to date.
24 The Health Department also strongly supports
25 Senator Hannon's bill that would enable more
50
1 widespread distribution of naloxone, by allowing
2 trained laypeople, as well as pharmacists, to
3 dispense naloxone with prescriber authorization.
4 As you already heard, another key part of our
5 efforts have been to promote guidelines, both for
6 emergency department and general-practice settings,
7 promoting judicious opioid prescribing.
8 We have also engaged in public awareness by
9 producing and airing several PSA (or public-service
10 announcements) on the risks of prescription opioids;
11 most recently, highlighting two Staten Islanders:
12 one who tragically lost her son from an opioid
13 overdose, and another highlighting a gentleman in
14 recovery.
15 Finally, and to echo the words you just
16 heard, there's urgent need for increased awareness
17 of and access to effective treatment for patients
18 and New Yorkers with opioid dependence and
19 addiction.
20 And as you've heard, like other chronic
21 health conditions, addiction is treatable.
22 You heard about the 50 percent success rate.
23 And I can tell you, in my work in primary
24 care, 50 percent effective treatment of diabetes and
25 high blood pressure is a pretty good rate.
51
1 And, so, I want to just say that that's a
2 pretty good success rate, and we should take every
3 advantage of it.
4 Scientific evidence demonstrates that
5 medication-assisted treatments, such as methadone
6 and buprenorphine, is the most effective way to
7 treat opioid addiction, which is a chronic, and can
8 be a lifelong, illness.
9 These medicines reduce deaths, drug use,
10 crime, and help people participate in their
11 communities, their families, and workplaces.
12 I will close by reiterating, we firmly
13 believe these deaths and addiction is preventable,
14 and moving forward addressing both opioid-analgesic
15 and heroin-overdose deaths will continue to be a
16 priority for the City Health Department.
17 We very much thank the Senate for their focus
18 on this public-health crisis, and we look forward to
19 working with you to move forward.
20 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you.
21 [Applause.]
22 SENATOR BOYLE: I would like to acknowledge
23 that we've been joined by the Staten Island
24 representative of Governor Andrew Cuomo, Paul Duffy.
25 Paul, thank you very much for coming.
52
1 [Applause.]
2 ASSEMBLYMAN CUSICK: Doctor, I just have a
3 quick question.
4 In reading the testimony, I see 2012.
5 Do we have recent statistics on overdose
6 unintended overdose stats?
7 DR. HILLARY KUNINS: So, though we are -- so,
8 not yet. We don't have final numbers.
9 We're hoping by the summer to have compiled
10 and checked figures.
11 ASSEMBLYMAN CUSICK: Okay. Thank you.
12 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you.
13 We do have a couple of questions from our
14 audience.
15 I would like to add one here, we have from a
16 parent: "Are there tips you can offer to help me
17 identify if my kids are on heroin or oxycodone?"
18 And I guess, Dr. Joffe, if you could...
19 DR. RUSSELL JOFFE: I'm not sure that there's
20 a specific answer to that.
21 I don't think it would be -- it would be
22 nice, but, no. Neither of those are good options.
23 So, the important thing is, to have open
24 communication.
25 And -- but, I don't think there's a specific
53
1 set of clinical symptoms that are going to
2 differentiate these addictions.
3 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you.
4 Yes.
5 CANDACE CRUPI: From experience with my own
6 son, opioid, the pills, the Oxycontin, if they're on
7 them, they itch a lot. They're always scratching
8 their face.
9 They take the heroin, they're out cold.
10 There's two -- yeah, that's the difference.
11 They don't take heroin, then just walk around
12 and itch around. They're out cold.
13 And that's our experience.
14 BARRY CRUPI: They nod out a lot.
15 CANDACE CRUPI: Yeah, they nod out a lot,
16 but, they don't scratch their face, and they're not
17 very itchy.
18 The pills make them very itchy.
19 BARRY CRUPI: And they don't eat when they're
20 on heroin.
21 CANDACE CRUPI: Right, yeah.
22 BARRY CRUPI: He never ate when he was on
23 heroin.
24 CANDACE CRUPI: And, yeah, you would know,
25 too. Right?
54
1 JAMES FIORE, JR.: Absolutely.
2 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone used.]
3 Maybe somebody from the panel [inaudible].
4 LUKE NASTA: If I may?
5 Nobody knows your children better than you
6 do. Nobody. Not their buddies, not whoever hangs
7 out with them.
8 As a matter of fact, the ones who know the
9 best are the siblings.
10 But nobody knows your children better than
11 you do.
12 If you suspect something's wrong, trust your
13 instinct something's wrong.
14 Whether we call it Oxycontin, oxycodone,
15 marijuana, inhalants, pills, heroin, cocaine,
16 whatever it is, you'll know that there's a problem.
17 And step up, and step into it, or wind up like these
18 unfortunate parents here.
19 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone
20 used/inaudible.]
21 LUKE NASTA: No, I'm sorry.
22 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone
23 used/Inaudible.]
24 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: You're right.
25 You're 100 percent right.
55
1 [Applause.]
2 JAMES FIORE, JR.: Thank you.
3 I know from my own symptoms, extreme -- if --
4 you could tell if someone is using oxycodone or
5 Oxycontin or any powerful opiate, by things, like,
6 there's mood swings.
7 In the morning, at night, being extremely
8 happy because they're high.
9 And then the next morning, going into temper
10 tantrums and tirades and punching holes in the
11 walls.
12 You can tell that they're not just doing
13 other things. Not maybe smoking weed, and whatnot.
14 You know, if children, which I have done,
15 I switched -- if I was -- when I was using, to ask
16 my mother for, "Mom, can, I have $30? I'm going to
17 go out to see a movie with a girl."
18 Or something like that. And I -- I'd hang
19 out in the neighborhood with my friends, in the
20 house. I don't go anywhere.
21 You know, she can see, you can tell that
22 people on any opioid, if their eyes are pinned, if
23 their pupils are pinned, and not dilated. You know,
24 that they get smaller.
25 And, isolation.
56
1 Isolation, in progressive addiction -- as
2 addiction progresses, isolation becomes a big part
3 of it. You know, what I mean?
4 And you'll see the crowds of children that
5 your friends hang out, that -- excuse me, the crowds
6 that your children hang out with will change.
7 Slowly, but surely, you'll start to notice
8 that they're not the kids that are going to school
9 or playing sports. They're the kids that are
10 smoking weed, that are selling weed, that are
11 selling pills, that are drinking and partying.
12 You know, with me and myself, I know that
13 I put my mother through hell. I know that I stole.
14 My mother knew, because she noticed her
15 medication was missing, because my -- both of my
16 parents worked, you know, two New York City jobs: a
17 postal mail handler, and, a track layer, my father.
18 They were both -- they both worked City jobs,
19 and I stole both their medications.
20 My mother -- my mother got off hers. She
21 chose to get off hers for that reason.
22 And, uhm -- yeah, you know -- I'm sorry,
23 that's all I have. Thank you.
24 Thank you.
25 [Applause.]
57
1 BRIAN HUNT: If I could just add to what
2 James said, James obviously lived it; hits the nail
3 on the head.
4 And you're right, he's the one we need to
5 hear from.
6 But I will tell you, from a person's point of
7 view, my son, very active, athletic, smart kid.
8 You know what? It was there. We didn't see
9 it. We didn't know what we were looking at, what we
10 were looking for.
11 But when you find out, what happens is, they
12 withdraw. They don't eat. They lose weight. They
13 sleep a lot. Sometimes they don't sleep at all.
14 And then you notice, like James said, my son
15 started to get new friends.
16 You know, when you get accustomed to seeing
17 the same group of kids with your son, in and out of
18 your house, who's there, who's playing, you know,
19 who's on video games, who's eating dinner with you,
20 or having a Sunday sauce, or whatever, and then, all
21 of a sudden, you meet these new kids, and, "Hey,
22 dad, this is my friend Tommy."
23 You know, my son had a -- my son was in a
24 fraternity with St. John's. He would introduce
25 me: Hey, dad, this is my friend Tommy. He's going
58
1 to be joining us.
2 "Okay, cool."
3 "And this is my friend John."
4 "This is my friend Bill."
5 All these new people.
6 And you know what? They come up very
7 respectful: Mr. Hunt, how are you? Nice meeting
8 you. You have a lovely home.
9 Goes down and sees my son.
10 How do I know that that wasn't the person
11 that said: Here, here's your stuff, in my house?
12 So there's a bit of disrespect involved in
13 that.
14 But you have to look for it. You have to
15 really look hard at your kid.
16 It's not going to jump out and bite you. You
17 have to pay attention to it.
18 And when they start to withdraw, and they
19 don't want to go away with you, and they don't want
20 to go someplace, you know, you begin to say: You
21 know what? I don't want to leave them home.
22 I will tell you, when my son went away for
23 treatment, went for two months --
24 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone
25 used/inaudible.]
59
1 [Microphone handed to audience member.]
2 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Jacqueline, you know me.
3 YMCA didn't help him.
4 You know me very well. I put him in there
5 how many times?
6 He's 22, I can't help him no more, they say.
7 He's 22.
8 Nobody can help me.
9 I have a petition, I just handed it to you.
10 I love my son, he's a good kid. Very
11 respectful.
12 He went to Cooper's wake. That's the day he
13 almost broke my arm, right after it. He begged me
14 for money.
15 She just lost her son three weeks ago.
16 [Another audience member stands.]
17 AUDIENCE MEMBER: There's a lot more.
18 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: How much?
19 AUDIENCE MEMBER: A lot more.
20 Pinning of the eyes. They can get big, they
21 can get small.
22 Sean's a good kid.
23 I got three boys.
24 It's hard.
25 Heroin is hard.
60
1 Outpatient don't work. I'm sorry.
2 Outpatient doesn't work.
3 Suboxone does not work.
4 Morphine does not work.
5 He went to Seguine. They gave him a drug,
6 three weeks ago. What did he do with it? Sold it.
7 He went to YMCA, they gave him Suboxone. He
8 went on Facebook, "Got Subs for sale. I got Subs
9 for sale."
10 I went back to Y and I said: Look, Sean's
11 got Subs for sale.
12 I showed them his Facebook. I argued with
13 that counselor.
14 And what did the counselor say to me?
15 "I don't like your attitude."
16 To me, the mother, "I don't like your
17 attitude."
18 I said: I don't like you. Do you have
19 children?
20 No, I don't have children.
21 I said: You don't understand then. He's my
22 son. That's my son.
23 I want to save his life. I don't want to
24 wind up like them.
25 And I'm very sorry for your loss. I am.
61
1 I want to save the children. And they are
2 children, as far as I'm concerned. I don't care if
3 they're 50, they are my children.
4 And I have a petition.
5 No matter how old they are, we as parents
6 have a right to save our children.
7 I'm asking for that petition.
8 And, everybody, I have a petition. If yous
9 want to sign it, I'll be at the door.
10 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone used.]
11 For what? What is it?
12 AUDIENCE MEMBER: To change the age, of a
13 parent to sign their family member into rehab for at
14 least nine months, until they have the thinking mind
15 of their own.
16 [Applause.]
17 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone
18 used/inaudible.]
19 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Because they cannot think
20 while they are high.
21 [Applause.]
22 AUDIENCE MEMBER: They cannot think on their
23 own while they are high.
24 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Can I say something?
25 My --
62
1 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'll be at the door.
2 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Excuse me, I'd like to say
3 something.
4 My daughter is presently in rehab, and she
5 has a co-occurring condition.
6 My daughter had to go to Florida for help,
7 because she came -- went to the Staten Island Mental
8 Health. She refused to go. She said she was going,
9 and she -- after three times, you're out the door
10 and they can't help you anymore.
11 So I -- my daughter is now in rehab in
12 Florida.
13 And this "privacy act" thing that we all know
14 about, when you're an addict, they're really not --
15 in my opinion, they're not focused properly in their
16 heads. They just care about getting their
17 substance.
18 What happens is, my daughter was admitted
19 into the hospital for psychological problems;
20 wanting to commit suicide a couple of times.
21 And the MS came, "Bring her to the psych
22 ward."
23 My daughter came out the same night.
24 Couldn't tell us anything, because my
25 daughter was 18 years old. "The privacy act."
63
1 Where is -- where -- as parents, where do we
2 stand?
3 Where do people, when these children, not
4 right in their minds to make their own decisions to
5 get their -- to get themselves help?
6 I even went to the courts to get my daughter
7 that mental -- the right to -- to get her the
8 mental, I forgot what you call it --
9 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone
10 used/inaudible.]
11 AUDIENCE MEMBER: -- and they awarded it to
12 me.
13 But what -- I would have to get the police to
14 get my daughter in my home, where she was
15 disappearing, going to crack houses, and what have
16 you, to get her help during the police -- during
17 court hours, and have the judge find out if she
18 really needed psychological help.
19 I mean, where is the rights, as parents, to
20 get your kids help without this privacy act?
21 I mean, they're not -- the addict is not
22 right in their head.
23 You want to help your children, but you have
24 this -- they're not telling you. They can't tell
25 you what's going wrong with children, even though
64
1 you know. You want to know what your child's on.
2 My daughter -- they told my daughter to sign
3 the paper.
4 They couldn't even tell me.
5 There was a police officer in the hospital
6 with her. I couldn't even know what's going on with
7 my daughter.
8 It's quite frustrating.
9 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you very much.
10 And I'll tell you that, we raised a couple of
11 issues here that I would like to get the panel's
12 opinion about these.
13 One is, Suboxone; and, whether it's
14 methadone, Suboxone, other medication, that addicts
15 are using while they're going through treatment.
16 I have gone around the state, and some people
17 swear by them, that these are -- it's the best way
18 to recovery. And others are saying, no, that these
19 addicted individuals are selling them on the street,
20 and -- to buy more heroin or become addicted to
21 them.
22 So, for the experts on the panel, I would
23 like to ask your opinion, and what you feel about
24 that.
25 Dr. Kunins?
65
1 DR. HILLARY KUNINS: So, thank you for
2 telling us both of your stories. And I know these
3 raise really complicated issues.
4 No single treatment works for every person;
5 I just want to start there.
6 And -- and because of the severity of
7 illness, sometimes it takes some time.
8 And I really respect --
9 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone
10 used/inaudible.]
11 [Multiple audience members speaking at
12 the same time.]
13 SENATOR BOYLE: Hold on.
14 Let me -- if we could, sir, you'll get a
15 chance.
16 SENATOR SAVINO: Let her finish.
17 SENATOR BOYLE: You'll get a chance.
18 Let's get some information.
19 DR. HILLARY KUNINS: I do want to just offer,
20 that different people's experiences are different.
21 But we -- but we -- and different intensity
22 of treatment, outpatient and inpatient, is different
23 for different people at different times.
24 We know from the medical literature, and
25 that's where I come from and can provide some
66
1 insight, is that many, many people do well and are
2 able to turn around their addiction with the help of
3 medicines.
4 That's not to say everybody, and not to say
5 that outpatient works for all people.
6 But to -- it's an important part of the
7 continuum of care and the services.
8 And for some people who have not been offered
9 medicine or not been available to take medicine
10 before, it can change the course of their -- their
11 course of their road for them.
12 And, I think we don't want to demonize one
13 treatment or another. I think it's important, in
14 the continuum of care, to make these options
15 available.
16 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you, Doctor.
17 SENATOR SAVINO: I have a question.
18 And, first, thank you for sharing that; your
19 personal pain, and the heartbreak.
20 And I see there's so many of you here who are
21 feeling this.
22 But what I hear is, the frustration that
23 you've been through, attempts at rehab before, with
24 your children, or your other family members.
25 And remember, this is not just kids. This is
67
1 everybody, you know. There's not a family I know
2 that hasn't been touched by addiction, including my
3 own.
4 But one of the things I'm hearing over and
5 over, is this new trend of rehab, inpatient rehabs,
6 which are directed, really, by the insurance
7 industry that say: We'll only pay for 28 days of
8 rehab.
9 28 days is not enough, particularly because
10 of the drugs that people are utilizing now. Many of
11 them, as Dr. Joffe knows, are also taking
12 psychotropic medication to deal with other medical
13 issues that they have.
14 We have a lot of mentally ill,
15 chemically-addicted people, and they're
16 self-medicating if they can't get what they need.
17 But 28 days is not enough time, and then to
18 expect them to manage their medication, manage their
19 psychiatric issues, manage their addiction, and do
20 it successfully.
21 I think we're expecting way too much. There
22 was a time when rehab was 12 months to 24 months,
23 and inpatient.
24 [Applause.]
25 SENATOR SAVINO: And I'm just wondering to
68
1 the service providers, is there some -- is there a
2 way that you can help us kind of redirect the
3 insurance industry that these are the things that
4 they should be paying for?
5 Dr. Joffe?
6 BRIAN HUNT: Well, can I just comment for a
7 second before that gentleman speaks?
8 I put my son into the 28-day program,
9 inpatient. He had to stay for another month.
10 My insurance company did not pay for my son
11 to be in treatment.
12 SENATOR SAVINO: At all?
13 BRIAN HUNT: At all.
14 And I'm -- and I'm glad you asked me that
15 question. You know why?
16 Because they told me that my son did not go
17 into an outpatient program.
18 But I put my son into a private outpatient
19 program, where he got personalized care in a
20 personalized group, that I paid for, that I did not
21 go through my insurance company for.
22 And they told me that, outpatient, before my
23 son could go into inpatient, and it cost me $10,000
24 a month for treatment, they said to me: Outpatient
25 has to fail.
69
1 And I said: What does that mean? Go ahead,
2 tell me what that means.
3 She said: Well, it means it doesn't work.
4 And I said: Go ahead, tell me what "doesn't
5 work" means?
6 My son has to do drugs again. Right? He has
7 to relapse.
8 What if my son dies?
9 We're trying to follow the program, and
10 I have to subject my son to something like that?
11 My wife sat in this place, originally, when
12 we went there, and my wife feared for her life while
13 she was sitting there.
14 And my wife said: This is my baby. I can't
15 put my baby in here.
16 People are walking around, and they're
17 saying: Come on, you have to be piss test.
18 And the kid says: No, I can't. I did my
19 shit today. I'll do it tomorrow.
20 My wife's not going put my son in a place
21 like that. So we paid privately.
22 Didn't matter.
23 My son had to fail at outpatient relapse,
24 take drugs, possibly die, and then the insurance
25 company said: You know what? We'll pay for you.
70
1 But ultimately what happens is, when my son
2 relapsed, at the end of the day, make no mistake
3 about it, it cost $30,000 to put my son in the
4 ground, but my insurance company wouldn't pay shit
5 to get my son the help that he needed.
6 And that's amazing.
7 I know there's people out here, and I've
8 spoken to them. They struggle because, you know
9 what? They don't have the money, or the coverage.
10 There has to be a way to get these people,
11 get the coverage, and get the expenses taken care
12 of, so you can get the help that you need for your
13 children.
14 I know I would pay anything. I would give my
15 life for my child. I would love to change places
16 with my son right now.
17 I can't.
18 But we have to do something with the health
19 industry, to get people like that help.
20 This young lady here, and that young lady,
21 I know -- we know each other, we've spoken before,
22 and they're suffering.
23 And it all comes down to dollars and cents.
24 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [Speaking without a
25 microphone.] It's cost us $60,000 so far. My
71
1 husband [inaudible] electrical union. And we're
2 still paying for my daughter's. She's in halfway
3 program right now.
4 But if we didn't have it, you know, we're
5 struggling, financially, to pay for my daughter's.
6 The union offered us a 28-day program.
7 My daughter didn't even want to go to an
8 outpatient. We knew 28 days was not long enough.
9 So we sent my daughter to a private facility
10 in Florida, and it cost us $60,000 out of our
11 pocket. And we can't get any insurance for it.
12 So it is very unfortunate for people that
13 don't have the insurance.
14 And we love our daughter. We couldn't put
15 any dollar amount on it. And my husband took his
16 pension, that's how we -- that's how we're paying
17 for my daughter's care right now, because we love
18 her and we don't want to lose her.
19 And Staten Island's very bad here.
20 Thank you.
21 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you very much. And you
22 are not alone in that. We've heard stories.
23 Dr. Joffe, you wanted to say something?
24 DR. RUSSELL JOFFE: We have a 24-bed unit at
25 Seguine on Seguine Avenue, with an average stay of
72
1 28 days. We can't keep people there.
2 I think we're one of the last inpatient
3 units.
4 Most people now have to be treated as
5 outpatients because there's -- simply, insurance
6 will not generally approve stays beyond five days.
7 SENATOR BOYLE: One of the things we're
8 seeing --
9 Excuse me, Senator.
10 SENATOR SAVINO: Uh-huh.
11 CANDACE CRUPI: Can I say something?
12 SENATOR BOYLE: One second.
13 One of things we're seeing is, there's
14 obviously legislation there regarding insurance.
15 And what we've heard at different forums is
16 the fact that, several different insurance
17 companies, you talk to ten different insurance
18 companies, you get ten different definitions of
19 "medical necessity" of what should be covered under
20 your insurance plan.
21 And with -- this Task Force is looking
22 seriously at trying to have a unified definition of
23 "medical necessity," in terms of coverage, so
24 everyone knows exactly what they're going to get and
25 what they won't get, so they can choose -- you can
73
1 choose your insurance company, and what to -- to see
2 what kind of treatment will be covered.
3 Mrs. Crupi.
4 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: You want to hear from --
5 he's been waiting.
6 CANDACE CRUPI: I have a question for the
7 doctor. I think it's Dr. Russell; right?
8 DR. RUSSELL JOFFE: Joffe.
9 CANDACE CRUPI: I went to the rehab. You
10 can't get in if you're on opioids. You can --
11 they'll only take you with the detox. They only
12 take you if you are on alcohol or Xanax.
13 Now, why is that?
14 If you're on opioids they don't care.
15 DR. RUSSELL JOFFE: Because most of opioid
16 addict -- opioid detox is increasingly becoming an
17 outpatient procedure because, although it's
18 extremely unpleasant and difficult, it is not
19 life-threatening.
20 Alcohol and benzodiazepine withdrawal is
21 life-threatening. You can die from it.
22 And so, increasingly, the practice in this
23 country, in this state, is to do that as an
24 outpatient. And the insurance companies have
25 followed suit.
74
1 It's very hard to get insurance approval
2 because opioid addiction can -- detox, I'm sorry
3 can, be done as an outpatient.
4 CANDACE CRUPI: But they can die of an
5 overdose.
6 DR. RUSSELL JOFFE: And remember, the detox
7 is a very, very -- detox is a very brief --
8 BARRY CRUPI: Kids can't go till after detox.
9 DR. RUSSELL JOFFE: What's that?
10 BARRY CRUPI: If they wanted to go to
11 Seguine Avenue to detox, you won't accept them if
12 they're on heroin or if they're on Oxycontin.
13 DR. RUSSELL JOFFE: It's not -- there's no
14 blanket policy --
15 BARRY CRUPI: The only way they're able to
16 get in is if they drink before they go there.
17 I mean, that's what they wind up doing.
18 CANDACE CRUPI: They have to have alcohol in
19 their system.
20 SENATOR BOYLE: Excuse me.
21 Sir, okay?
22 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I just wanted to say, my
23 son has an addiction problem, and he's away now.
24 And I had to call my wife to see if I could
25 speak first, because there's people I here I know.
75
1 So that goes with the embarrassment issue.
2 But, he's in a program now called
3 "Dynamite Youth Center." It's in Brooklyn.
4 And, I was told about this by a colleague of
5 mine a while ago, but I couldn't bring -- I couldn't
6 see having to put my son away for a year. You know,
7 I figured that's like a jail sentence.
8 But, it's been a progressively difficult
9 problem with him since he's 16. Basically, the same
10 thing: alcohol.
11 He was in St. Peter's High School.
12 He went to the -- we put him in the
13 Army Reserves, the National Guard...everything
14 eventually failed, and he wound up recently
15 overdosing.
16 Fortunately, I was home that night.
17 He came home 1:00 in the morning, because
18 I gave him a 1:00 curfew.
19 He came home, he said he was at his
20 girlfriend's house. I checked him, I looked in his
21 face, he looked good.
22 He went in his room.
23 I sleep in the family room. I don't even
24 sleep with my wife, because I have to keep an eye on
25 him; make sure that he don't climb out to window,
76
1 make sure somebody don't come in the window.
2 But, anyway, I heard a grown about a
3 half hour later, about 1:30 in the morning, and then
4 a thud.
5 So I got up.
6 You know, usually I'll hear something and
7 I'll say, Ah, to hell with it.
8 But this -- this night, I went in, and there
9 he is on the floor, in his sweat pants, and that's
10 it. And he's not breathing. Totally unresponsive.
11 I'm slapping his face, trying to bring him to.
12 He won't come to.
13 So, you know, I'm an emergency responder, so
14 my training, finally, after 57 years of life, kicked
15 in. And you say you'll always use it when it's your
16 family member, which happened that night.
17 So I gave him the breath and the chest
18 compressions, and revived him. And then the police
19 came.
20 And he went out of second time. They had to
21 resume chest compressions.
22 Make a long story short, we went over to the
23 South Shore Staten Island University Hospital.
24 I was in there all night with him, and then they
25 released him in the morning.
77
1 Now, this was after I already had him in --
2 I had until a detox -- I tried to get him into
3 detox, Bayley Seton Hospital.
4 "He doesn't have a serious enough problem."
5 I said: What do you mean? Who -- who puts
6 the definition of what the problem is? I live with
7 him. I know he's got a serious enough problem. You
8 don't even know him. You're a physician's
9 assistant. Let me talk to the doctor in charge.
10 They put him on Suboxone for a week. I had
11 keep him locked up in my house for a week, to try
12 the Suboxone. That didn't work.
13 I wound up taking him now to Staten Island
14 again, and they said they had no beds.
15 So I -- you know, I didn't want to bring him
16 home again. I don't want to bring mim back into the
17 neighborhood.
18 So I wound up taking to him to a place in
19 Jersey. We got him admitted that same day. It was
20 like the difference between night and day.
21 The epicenter of the epidemic is
22 Staten Island; and, yet, you don't get the response
23 that you would think would be appropriate with the
24 epidemic epicenter being here.
25 [Applause.]
78
1 AUDIENCE MEMBER: You have to go someplace
2 else to get the response that you need.
3 And now he's in -- he's in the detox for
4 seven days, maybe, in Jersey. And, we bring him
5 some clean clothes one afternoon, and he's gone.
6 I said: What do you mean he's gone?
7 "Well, he was fraternizing with a girl, so we
8 asked them both to leave."
9 "Well, where are they?"
10 "I don't know where they are."
11 So I had to call the Jersey police, put a
12 missing person's report out for him. And,
13 eventually, tracked him down. He was at the girl's
14 grandmother's house.
15 And I took him right up to the mountains of
16 Pennsylvania for rehab.
17 And, he got thrown out of rehab for fighting
18 with somebody in the rehab up there.
19 And, you know, ultimately, it wound up to
20 where he was, basically, dead.
21 And now, when I'm in Staten Island University
22 Hospital South Shore, after that whole night,
23 they're sending him home.
24 I said: But how are you going to send him
25 home?
79
1 "Well, we only treat alcohol here. We have
2 an affiliate across the street. You can bring him
3 tomorrow morning to the affiliate."
4 Now, I don't want to bring him tomorrow
5 morning. I don't want him back home. He needs to
6 be locked up.
7 You know, he needs -- in that type of
8 state -- and that's the other issue is, the age.
9 Well, he's of -- you know, "We can't tell you
10 anything where he is. He's of the age, where, you
11 know, he can do what he wants to do when he wants to
12 do it, and that's it."
13 So the problem is -- and the other thing is,
14 too, with the insurance, I had the same problem with
15 the insurance company, where they were telling me --
16 I said: I need to have him put in at least for
17 28 days. He needs help. He's got to be someplace
18 and be helped for 28 day, at least.
19 That's what's in my head.
20 "That's not the way it is anymore, sir. We
21 do it every seven days, we re-evaluate them. And if
22 it's medically -- if it's deemed that he no longer
23 medically needs that type of service, he's
24 released."
25 Dynamite Youth Center in Brooklyn, they took
80
1 my son at 23. They say 23 is the cutoff.
2 But, he goes away for a year.
3 "He's upstate now. You can't have contact
4 with him for six months. When he earns the right to
5 his behavior, he'll be allowed to call you at home."
6 And, eventually, they let him come home --
7 after the second six months, he could come home on
8 the weekends, if he deserves it.
9 He requests it, we have to agree to it, and
10 then they'll let him come back, supervised, where
11 somebody else from the program has to come and stay
12 in my house with him.
13 And then in the second year, he's doing
14 outpatient, going to and from Brooklyn. He's not
15 allowed to work. He's not allowed to do anything
16 but recover.
17 And, eventually, you know, if everything goes
18 according to plan, he can resume his life; go back
19 to school, get a job.
20 But that's what people need, something like
21 that.
22 I mean, and I -- I feel so bad, because he
23 almost died, and I didn't want to put him in, away
24 for a year, when my friend told me about it.
25 My friend told me, "My son went there. They
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1 sent him away for a year."
2 You know, I didn't think I had to go to that
3 extreme. But you do.
4 And it almost cost him his life.
5 So, you know, like I say, if some -- if this
6 is the epicenter of the problem, we need to have the
7 resources here to help people.
8 [Applause.]
9 SENATOR SAVINO: I certainly hope that your
10 son is successful this time.
11 Again, in listening to the personal stories,
12 you just reinforce what those in the profession
13 know: That you can't make someone get sober that
14 doesn't want to.
15 You can take them to rehab every week. If
16 they're not willing to participate, they're going to
17 relapse and relapse and relapse.
18 The challenge for people like us, and the
19 service providers and law enforcement, is to help
20 develop public policies to support families who are
21 going through this. Make sure the resources are
22 there. Make sure that the treatment programs match
23 it.
24 But in the end, we need cooperation from the
25 addicts, and that's the hardest part. And I wish we
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1 could legislate that.
2 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Can I say something?
3 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone
4 used/inaudible.]
5 SENATOR BOYLE: If I could, that is actually
6 the other issue I was going speak to, is mandated
7 treatment.
8 Now, the fact is, in New York State, we don't
9 even have mandated treatment for minors, forget
10 about people of age.
11 And I think that that is one of the areas of
12 legislation we're looking at, we've heard about.
13 And we hear stories of kids, 15, 16 years
14 old, they walked out of treatment and the treatment
15 provider said: Oh, we can't stop them.
16 Well, you should -- you have to be able to
17 stop them, as parents, to mandate treatment.
18 For those above age, obviously, we have
19 Kendra's Law, mandating medicines for those in
20 psychiatric -- with psychiatric problems who are a
21 danger to themselves and others.
22 Well, we may have to look at something like
23 that for addiction services, as well.
24 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone
25 used/inaudible.]
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1 [Multiple audience members speaking at
2 the same time.]
3 SENATOR BOYLE: I understand.
4 We have some cards. If you have something
5 that you'd like to say, please, our staff person,
6 right over here, will give you a card, and we can
7 ask questions.
8 I'd just like to turn it over, quickly,
9 unless my colleagues have something else on this
10 issue, to the law-enforcement aspect of things.
11 SENATOR LANZA: And can I just, sort of, a
12 little more than midway through here, I just want
13 to -- I just would like to make a comment.
14 First of all, I think this is very helpful.
15 And we're here to learn from each other, and
16 really get a better picture of the problem.
17 You know, there are two components here:
18 There's, first, what do we do to stop this
19 from happening to begin with?
20 And we want to see whether or not,
21 legislatively, or otherwise, we can make a run at
22 making these drugs less available, changing
23 behavior, more education.
24 And then, in terms of those who have become
25 victims of addiction, we want to know -- see what
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1 more we can do about this.
2 And I want to say this, and I know this is
3 very emotional for all of us:
4 I'm the parent of three young children here
5 on Staten Island.
6 And as I went through the research for
7 I-STOP, together with Assemblyman Cusick, I can't
8 tell you, every night, I just -- I couldn't sleep.
9 I was horrified.
10 And, I'm still in a state of continued fear,
11 knowing what's happening out there in our schools
12 and backyards and at parties, all across
13 Staten Island, and all across the state.
14 And it's not just Staten Island. It's a
15 national epidemic.
16 But I want to say this:
17 No one has that one magic solution; no one in
18 the audience, no one at this panel.
19 Because if someone did, we wouldn't be here
20 today.
21 But the reason we're here, is because
22 everyone you see on this panel is a piece, a
23 potential part, of the solution.
24 And everyone here on the panel has a certain
25 expertise.
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1 And everyone here, more importantly, on this
2 panel, wants to help, and that's why they're giving
3 their time here.
4 And that's what this is all about.
5 And the same from those in the audience.
6 So this is good, I think, because we're here
7 to learn from each other. But this is not about --
8 in my opinion, this is not about saying who is not
9 doing something, or who -- because people have
10 different roles.
11 And there is not -- this is going to take all
12 of us, truly, to come together, and come up with a
13 comprehensive solution so that we can make inroads
14 to this very devastating problem.
15 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone used.]
16 I just have one question [inaudible].
17 I would like to know, what is in place, what
18 role do you guys play, that is going to [inaudible]
19 at the source, rather than wait until there's a
20 problem?
21 You know, these people are trying desperately
22 to get help.
23 What are you guys doing in front of that, to
24 stop it?
25 Because these kids are finding it so easily
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1 available. And I'm finding it really hard to
2 believe that nobody is interceding before it gets to
3 them.
4 ASST. CHIEF EDWARD DELATORRE: Okay, from the
5 NYPD, let me just start with where the problem
6 appears to have surfaced out here on Staten Island.
7 We first noticed a dramatic increase in
8 arrests for pills in 2011.
9 If you look at 2010, going up to last year,
10 the arrests we made for people with pills increased
11 more than tenfold.
12 The heroin, although a lot of people like to
13 think that the pills are dropping off and the heroin
14 is increasing, I know from our narcotics
15 investigations, that is supported, to some degree.
16 But, overall, when we look at our overall
17 arrests here on Staten Island, the heroin arrests
18 really started to explode last year.
19 We saw, it doubled in 2012.
20 But in 2013, we saw a dramatic increase.
21 And we're watching that trend go into 2014.
22 So going into 2014, we're seeing a lot more
23 heroin out there, as well.
24 But, I can't tell you that we're seeing a big
25 drop-off in the pills.
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1 We know it's not as readily available.
2 We know that the I-STOP, I believe we call
3 it, program, has really had an impact on our
4 pharmacies. Our major cases, you know, we don't
5 have as many of them as we did before.
6 But we have two problems now: We have the
7 pills and we have heroin, and they're both big
8 problems.
9 So now I'm going to work back into what we're
10 doing about it.
11 So one of things I know you heard mentioned,
12 is that we're using the naloxone now.
13 The naloxone is a spray that, pretty much,
14 puts on hold the effects of the overdose. It
15 doesn't stop it. It just puts it on hold for a
16 short period of time so we can get the person to the
17 hospital.
18 We did pilot it, starting this year, in the
19 120 Precinct, which basically services the
20 North Shore Area.
21 And in two months' time, we had three saves
22 that were, what I would call "bona fide saves,"
23 where the subject or the patient actually stopped
24 breathing. And the officers were there in time,
25 administered the spray. In most cases, it had to
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1 administer it twice. But, it snapped the person
2 back, they became coherent. We got them to the
3 hospital, and they were saved.
4 We had another incident where we did use it,
5 but the person was not suffering from an overdose.
6 It was something else, apparently. But even in that
7 case, it seemed to make them a little more alert.
8 But in all four cases, nobody died on us, so
9 we did get them medical treatment.
10 So, right now, we're in the process of
11 training all the officers on Staten Island, all the
12 uniformed officers that respond, and the narcotics
13 officers that deal with the narcotics, you know,
14 narcotics enforcement directly.
15 I would suggest that -- and, again, I got to
16 say this before I go any further:
17 To the Hunt family, to the Crupi family,
18 I can't imagine the pain you're living with now.
19 I'm a father of five.
20 Right now, I worry about my four-year-old
21 running into the street. And we live with these
22 fears all the time.
23 I'm not at the point -- my kids are all in
24 grammar school. I'm not at the where I have to
25 worry about drugs.
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1 But I can see that that worry has to continue
2 through those years, and you have to look for the
3 signs.
4 And I'm learning this here.
5 You know, I'm taking off my chief hat and
6 putting on my father hat here, and I can see the
7 fear that I'm going be living with as my kids become
8 teenagers.
9 And to those of you who are living with it
10 actively now, you know, I wish I had some answer.
11 I do know that other people that are very
12 close to me have dealt with it in that very extreme
13 way. They've taken large pension loans, and shipped
14 their children out of state, got them into in-house
15 treatment for up to a year, then halfway for another
16 year. Then let the kids come back to New York for
17 two to three years.
18 And when they did come back to New York,
19 their environment had changed, and they have had
20 some success in those areas, from what I've seen.
21 PATRICK TREVOR [ph.]: Hello, I'm --
22 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: [No microphone
23 used/inaudible.]
24 ASST. CHIEF EDWARD DELATORRE: I'm still
25 working on it. I am working on it.
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1 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: [No microphone
2 used/inaudible.]
3 PATRICK TREVOR [ph.]: -- my name is
4 Patrick Trevor [ph.]. I'm 21 years old. And, I
5 just want to mention that I have 18 months clean
6 right now.
7 [Applause.]
8 PATRICK TREVOR [ph.]: I also would like to
9 say that it is Suboxone-free, it is methadone-free.
10 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Good for you.
11 PATRICK TREVOR [ph.]: And I know --
12 I know --
13 Thank you.
14 [Applause.]
15 PATRICK TREVOR [ph.]: Yes, I understand that
16 that is an option, and that may have worked for you.
17 But I also know 125 other people, that are my
18 friends, between the ages of 17 and 25, that are
19 also doing it.
20 And I hear so much about the negative here
21 today, and I wanted to mention a little bit of the
22 positive.
23 I'm a member of Dynamite. It is also known
24 as "Dynamic Youth Community."
25 I also have gone to 17 different programs,
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1 and had to battle with the insurance companies.
2 And, in the beginning, I can honestly say
3 I didn't want it. But at the point when I did want
4 to achieve sobriety, the insurance companies
5 wouldn't help me do it.
6 I would be recommended by a medical official
7 to go to, say, a three-month program, and the
8 insurance would pay for two weeks.
9 Then I would only go for two weeks.
10 And I never got a fighting chance, until
11 I found Dynamic Youth Community, which I can
12 honestly say, for me, a severe heroin addict, was
13 the best option, and that it is possible.
14 And I want to give all of the parents here
15 hope about how possible it is, because I am -- I'm
16 it. I'm here with friends that are it.
17 And I feel your pain, and I agree with you,
18 I have to say: That there are other options of how
19 to do it. There's so many different things.
20 Me, I was first introduced to the pills,
21 I was a lacrosse player, and I shattered my thumb,
22 and the doctor prescribed me Roxicodone.
23 Didn't tell me how addictive it was.
24 What he said was, "You got the good stuff."
25 So that just shows me, almost, how the doctor
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1 wasn't even educated on it.
2 That's 100 percent true. It's amazing that
3 he would say that.
4 After that, a friend showed me: Oh, you can
5 sniff these, you can get high.
6 I enjoyed the feeling. I thought, Oh, this
7 can't take a hold of me.
8 By the time I couldn't afford it, I started
9 doing heroin, to the point where I was shooting
10 heroin; where I had lost everything; where I had
11 gone to jail; where I had stolen from my family.
12 And then I found Dynamite.
13 It brings -- it makes me emotional thinking
14 about how much they have actually helped me.
15 And how I can't stress how there is other
16 options, and how funding these programs is what
17 keeps me alive, and what keeps all these other
18 children or young adults, living healthy, productive
19 lives.
20 Dynamite isn't just a rehabilitation program.
21 It also taught me how to hold a job, how to be
22 responsible, how to be a caring person.
23 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone
24 used/inaudible.]
25 PATRICK TREVOR [ph.]: What?
93
1 AUDIENCE MEMBER: How to speak properly.
2 PATRICK TREVOR [ph.]: How to speak properly,
3 yes, they did teach me that, I've got to say.
4 How to present myself.
5 They taught me all of these life lessons that
6 I actually didn't learn in the 38 programs.
7 Sure, I learned about the addiction. And I'm
8 sure, yes, people do understand it, and they do get
9 it.
10 But I learned everything else that comes with
11 life. "Everything."
12 Now I know how to look back at my feelings,
13 and how to figure out why I wanted to get high.
14 And, now, how positive a future I have.
15 And, right now, I'm actually going to bring
16 up another friend of mine, Michael, who actually
17 was -- he is one of my peers, and he's doing the
18 exact same thing as me.
19 [Applause.]
20 MIKE FLYNN: My name is Mike Flynn. I'm from
21 the south shore of Staten Island. I grew up in
22 Connorville.
23 I want to speak on behalf of, even the detox
24 at the Staten Island University Hospital.
25 I was not admitted there after having a
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1 horrible heroin addiction. "Horrible."
2 All right?
3 I overdosed, I think, couple of hours prior
4 to trying to go there with my mother. They would
5 not accept me.
6 I was told to, basically, go out, drink, or
7 get loaded up on Xanax, so I would test positive, so
8 they would take me in.
9 All right?
10 So that's what I had to do.
11 My mother stayed with me in a car in the
12 parking lot, and telling me to "do whatever you have
13 to do to get yourself in there."
14 On behalf of, like, 28-day programs, I worked
15 for the City at one point and I was sent to
16 28-day programs that are accessible to the cops,
17 firemen, all that other stuff.
18 After --
19 BRIAN HUNT: Was that the Villa?
20 MIKE FLYNN: -- Malworth [ph.], they call it
21 "The Farm." Maybe the cops know it up there.
22 But -- so I go there. I was there multiple times
23 within a 6-month period, basically, after I started
24 IV'ing drugs.
25 By the second time I was there, they told me
95
1 that there is no possible way that they could help
2 me. They discharged me after two weeks.
3 They told me that I had an anxiety disorder
4 and depression, and that I needed to, basically,
5 leave, and go seek medication and therapy outside
6 of, you know, what they could do for me.
7 This was supposed to be, you know, one of the
8 top rehabilitation centers probably on the
9 east coast, and this is what was told to me.
10 So, that's what I did.
11 Shortly after that, lost my job. Started
12 getting arrested for the first time in my life, and
13 wound up in jail, Rikers Island.
14 Never thought I would be there. And I come
15 from very blue-collar, working-class family. And
16 that was never in the cards.
17 And, that's what happened.
18 After being there for a month, I was given an
19 option by the courts to go to, you know, a program
20 or take a prison sentence.
21 All I knew was that -- I really had no hope
22 at that point, but all I knew was that, it was
23 either I was going to do something or I was going to
24 die.
25 I was hopeless. I was down on my knees, you
96
1 know. There was times where I just -- I wish that's
2 what it came to me, because that would have easier
3 than what I was doing.
4 And, I wound up at Dynamite.
5 And I can say, over and year and half later,
6 life's good again. Working. I got probably
7 60 pounds heavier than I've ever been, you know.
8 I was, like, my cheeks were sunken in. I was
9 like -- you know.
10 And, just, life's good again.
11 But it wasn't because of short-term
12 treatment. It was because I went away to a
13 long-term treatment, that I have all these
14 opportunities that I did now.
15 When I was 18, I was put on Suboxone, because
16 that was supposed to be the cure.
17 The doctor told me: Take this, and just go
18 about life. You know, you go to therapy once in a
19 while, everything's going to work out.
20 Yeah, it worked for like two years, and
21 I achieved a lot. As soon as I went off of it, back
22 to drugs, because I didn't know how to deal with
23 anything. It was a substitution.
24 There's ways to go about it.
25 And what she [indicating] had to say today, a
97
1 lot of other people, the people that experienced it,
2 they know what they're talking about.
3 And no offense to anyone up there, but,
4 unless you lived it, you really can't have, you
5 know, the right perspective on the matter.
6 [Applause.]
7 BRIAN HUNT: To that gentleman that just
8 spoke, I wish I had the opportunity to continue to
9 experience it. I wish my son was alive so I can
10 work with him in getting clean.
11 I don't have my son anymore, so I don't --
12 that's a bad thing for me.
13 My son went to the Villa Veritas upstate in
14 Kerhonkson, New York. He went for a 28-day program;
15 intense program.
16 He didn't get it.
17 They wouldn't let him out. Said you have to
18 go for another 28 days.
19 He stayed there for two months. He finally
20 got it.
21 He came out.
22 You have to go to your meetings.
23 You had to do 90 meetings in 90 days. That's
24 intense. And you have to work the program. And you
25 have to get a sponsor.
98
1 If you don't do that on the 28-day program,
2 it's not going to work at all. You can't do it
3 alone.
4 You have to go to your programs, you have to
5 go to your meetings. You have to have a sponsor;
6 someone to look after you.
7 So, God bless you, for you two gentlemen, for
8 doing what you're doing.
9 Stay strong, and I hope you live a very long,
10 prosperous life.
11 [Applause.]
12 BRIAN HUNT: I wanted to -- can I just, one
13 thing, I want to get back to this young lady right
14 here.
15 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I'm sorry.
16 BRIAN HUNT: Yeah, I'm sorry.
17 SENATOR LANZA: So there was a question to
18 law enforcement.
19 Let me -- before we go back there, let me
20 remind everyone, as I said before, everyone here is
21 part of the solution, not the entire solution.
22 With respect to what law enforcement is
23 doing, we're very fortunate here on Staten Island.
24 I can speak now as a former prosecutor from
25 the Manhattan District Attorney's Office,
99
1 I prosecuted hundreds of drug cases.
2 Law enforcement, they can do two things:
3 They enforce the laws that we have on the
4 book, criminally.
5 And you hear, also, as the chief was saying,
6 they're now training themselves to deal with, when
7 they respond as first responders, to save those
8 lives.
9 But they're not part of treatment. They're
10 not part of the more -- you know, some of the other
11 things we're talking about here.
12 And I could also tell you their jobs are made
13 more difficult by the mixed signals we in society
14 are sending.
15 I can't tell you, my work on I-STOP, how many
16 Staten Islanders called my office, to tell me that
17 drugs should be legalized. That this was the wrong
18 approach.
19 Many Staten Islanders called to say that, and
20 e-mailed, to say they ought to be legalized.
21 As a prosecutor, I can tell you, how many
22 instances prosecuting drug-sale crimes in Manhattan,
23 when the criminal justice system would treat them as
24 if they were shoplifters.
25 To me, you sell heroin, you're a murderer.
100
1 So it's very difficult, the climate, in which
2 our law enforcement is operating.
3 But I'll let them tell you what they're doing
4 on Staten Island. And they are being very dynamic
5 in trying to address this growing crime, from their
6 perspective, the crime.
7 ASST. CHIEF EDWARD DELATORRE: I will.
8 I will, two seconds.
9 So what I was saying, then, is now -- so now
10 we move to the prevention side.
11 So we have a lot of programs. Not treatment,
12 because, he's correct, we don't treat. But there is
13 a treatment component to our enforcement, and I'll
14 get to that in a minute.
15 On a prevention side, we go after youth, and
16 we have programs. We have what we call the
17 "Youth Police Academy." It's been in New Dorp High
18 School. We're opening up a second one now up on the
19 north shore here, as well, in Curtis High School,
20 where we take in about 130, 140 kids.
21 We have -- that's the YPA (Youth Police
22 Academy).
23 We have Law-Enforcement Exploring, which we
24 engage teenagers, from ages 14 to 21, in every
25 precinct, including the new 121 now. They have a
101
1 program there, as well.
2 We have a Law-Enforcement Exploring Academy,
3 where we take kids away for a three-week boot camp:
4 two weeks in Fordham University, and a third week up
5 in 10-Mile River Campground.
6 And during this entire time, they're being
7 mentored and trained by NYPD, DEA, Customs agents,
8 FBI agents. The counselors in these programs are
9 all law-enforcement people.
10 So we're engaging youth at a younger age,
11 trying to help mentor, trying to assist parents in
12 mentoring, and giving them some positive role models
13 outside of what they're seeing on the street.
14 We have many, many other programs here.
15 And Lorraine Marin [ph.] from the Community
16 Affairs Bureau is standing on the side of the room.
17 And anybody who wants more information about
18 it after the meeting, please go over to her.
19 And if you want your children, your younger
20 children, in the same families affected right now,
21 if you have younger children, I would strongly
22 encourage you to go over and see her, and find out
23 what programs we have for the younger children, too.
24 I can tell you, for the younger children, I'm
25 sure you're aware, they're suffering by seeing the
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1 older sibling go through this, as well.
2 Now, I move on to the enforcement aspect.
3 Captain Dorazio here is going to talk about
4 what we do with the drug dealers.
5 Because, obviously, these drug dealers are
6 selling, they're affecting the lives of hundreds and
7 hundreds of people. We finally get them,
8 something's got to happen.
9 But the other part is, for the drug users
10 that we're arresting so many of, as well, on the
11 island, is Dan Donovan and the DA's Office has this
12 court, a drug court.
13 And I -- Karen is here from the DA's Office,
14 and she'll be able to expand on what the drug court
15 does to kind of force treatment on many people.
16 Go ahead, Captain.
17 CAPTAIN DOMINICK DORAZIO: Thank you all for
18 inviting me today. I appreciate it.
19 What I wanted to say to you is, obviously --
20 well, let me start by saying:
21 I'm not positive I can offer you the answer
22 that you want, because a lot of what we do, you
23 know, cannot be discussed in an open forum. You
24 know, this is not appropriate time to discuss that.
25 However, speaking specifically of my unit,
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1 and the problem that we've discussed here today, and
2 Dr. Messina accurately described how this problem
3 has affected -- you know, this problem that we're
4 talking about today with regards to narcotics, has
5 affected, primarily, the south shore and
6 middle island.
7 Typically, you know, what I could say is
8 that, the way we allocate our resources, we are much
9 more dedicated to tackling the problem in that area.
10 Typically, narcotics, when we prioritize the
11 allocation of our resources, it is -- we tend to
12 prioritize the areas that are prone to violence.
13 And while this is a public-health crisis, the
14 violence associated, it has not been associated with
15 pill trade, and even heroin, on the south shore.
16 However, our union has recognized the
17 public-health emergency, and we have shifted our
18 focus, where, without ignoring the areas of
19 Staten Island that are prone to violence, we're able
20 to enforce, you know, more aggressively in the areas
21 that are, you know, being affected by this and may
22 not be as prone to violence.
23 The south shore, you know, the Princess Bay
24 area, you know, even middle island and the
25 south beach area, these -- you know, which really
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1 isn't the south shore, but, you know, these areas
2 that are primarily affected by this.
3 What my unit does, obviously, we are a very
4 proactive unit. We conduct daily enforcement.
5 We're out there, you know, seven days a week.
6 And a lot of what we do is responding to the
7 complaints that you all make. Sometimes
8 anonymously, sometimes in writing, sometimes, you
9 know, however you make -- you know, direct to the
10 precinct, you know, we respond directly.
11 Now, when you make these complaints, you may
12 expect instant gratification.
13 But the way my unit works, that instant
14 gratification not possible.
15 In order to build a strong case, and the
16 DA's Office could attest to this, you know, we can't
17 just go out there and say, you know: There's the
18 problem, make the arrests, and the problem's solved.
19 We have to build a case, so, we do more
20 intense investigations.
21 We don't just -- you know, we do daily
22 buy-and-bust enforcement, also.
23 But, you know, the bulk of what we do, and we
24 try and do, is try to infiltrate these individuals
25 and these groups that are selling the stuff, and,
105
1 you know, bring them to justice, so to speak.
2 But, it doesn't take -- it doesn't take, you
3 know, a day. Sometimes it could take weeks,
4 sometimes it could take, you know, more, to develop
5 the information that we need to get to where we want
6 to get.
7 I will say this:
8 My unit has -- you know, we talked about the
9 I-STOP program. I'm just comparing this year to
10 last year.
11 In 2013, compared to 2014, we have seen a
12 precipitous drop in the amount of pills that are out
13 there.
14 You know, 44 percent, obviously, that hasn't
15 translated across the borough. Chief Delatorre's,
16 you know, information is 100 percent accurate.
17 But in my unit, we've seen a precipitous drop
18 in the amount of pills.
19 Unfortunately, that drop has been
20 commensurate with the increase in heroin.
21 So, where we see a 46 percent drop in pill
22 seizures, we're seeing a 44 percent increase in
23 heroin seizures, from -- you know, from last year to
24 this year.
25 And when you go back two years, I mean, it's
106
1 like almost 100 percent, the increase in heroin that
2 we're seeing.
3 So, we're effective out there. We're getting
4 the heroin that we can, we're getting the pills that
5 we can.
6 And just to speak to that I-STOP program,
7 personally, how I feel about it:
8 You say, Well, if that I-STOP program is
9 working, why are we seeing so much heroin?
10 Well, I would say this: I would say that
11 those probably aren't new users.
12 That -- that the amount of pills that were
13 available between 2009 and now, you know, you may
14 have created a whole generation of new users.
15 Now, to see the effectiveness of I-STOP,
16 I think you'll see that in the years to come, where
17 these kids -- and he spoke to it, and the young men
18 back there spoke to it, I don't think these kids are
19 going to make the jump to heroin without the pills.
20 So as the I-STOP program takes effect, so to
21 speak, and the pills start drying up, the next
22 generation, so to speak, you know, won't have that
23 same problem.
24 That's my own personal opinion on the
25 effectiveness. I think it's great program. And it
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1 is working. I mean, we have seen a tremendous
2 decrease.
3 I hope I offered you some kind of an answer
4 there, you know, and -- you know, did the best
5 I could there.
6 Thank you.
7 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you very much, Captain.
8 I'd just like follow up, along those lines,
9 with the District Attorney's representative, Karen.
10 Around the different parts of the state, it
11 seems that we're getting different answers from
12 different prosecutors' offices.
13 Are the laws strong enough now?
14 When you get a case from the law enforcement,
15 and you have someone dealing with 50 bags, 100 bags,
16 200 bags, do you say: Okay, we can give him a
17 felony as a drug dealer?
18 Now, obviously, we make the dichotomy between
19 those people who are selling because of their
20 addiction themselves, to get their own drugs, or,
21 those purely dealing drugs.
22 How do you feel about the current laws?
23 KAREN VARRIALE: The current laws, as they
24 state, have actually reduced the mandatory state
25 prison sentence for even second-time felony
108
1 offenders.
2 So the -- what used to happen in the early
3 days before the Drug Law Reform Act, was that, if
4 you were facing a second felony offense:
5 You had to go to state prison;
6 Or, you could go into our "drug-treatment
7 alternatives to prison" program: Do 18 months
8 inpatient, 6 months outpatient, followed by a
9 misdemeanor, to avoid your state-prison sentence.
10 Now you don't have to do that.
11 Our numbers in that program decreased so much
12 once they -- when the law was changed.
13 That being said, we have also created the
14 Staten Island Treatment Court for first-time felony
15 offenders; Staten Island Treatment Court for
16 misdemeanor offenders. Also, they're outpatient,
17 mostly, programs.
18 But if there's a failure, the Court will
19 either sentence, a punishment, some jail, back to
20 treatment. And it changes.
21 We've also created -- our office has created
22 a program called "Drug Cap," which is for
23 first-time, usually, pill offenders; where, you have
24 to go to a panel similar to this, some law
25 enforcement, recovery, those grieving a loss, and
109
1 listen to the stories of where you could end up.
2 It's that future look.
3 And that's -- will let you get off without a
4 criminal record so you can still stay with a clean
5 slate.
6 But it's not only for drug users -- drug
7 offenses. We offer these programs to anyone who has
8 the addiction, if you qualify.
9 If you're burglarizing, you know, a
10 commercial establishment because you need to feed
11 your addiction, you can still qualify.
12 The only people who generally don't qualify
13 are violent offenders.
14 But back to the generation change in I-STOP,
15 because, now, we are seeing the heroin, which is
16 unfortunate, it makes my life a little easier.
17 I don't have to battle the "I have a prescription"
18 defense.
19 You have heroin, it's automatically unlawful
20 and it's much easier to prosecute.
21 But, I'll tell you, the judges, as well, and
22 we as a prosecutor's office, would rather treat the
23 offender than punishment them, because if you are
24 truly an addict, you're not going to be any better
25 after six months in prison or jail. You need to
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1 face that problem and deal with it.
2 So our programs are the first place we go.
3 And we work hand-in-hand with
4 Captain Dorazio's unit for those complaints that
5 I get. I could make a phone call, and he's on it
6 the next day.
7 So we are doing as much as we can at the
8 front of enforcement, as well, in our
9 investigations. We work with them from the
10 beginning. We target the areas, and we work every
11 day with the investigators.
12 So that's what we're doing.
13 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you very much.
14 And one final area in law enforcement,
15 Special Agent Hunt, on Long Island we see the heroin
16 coming up from the cartels and out to Long Island.
17 Is it a similar situation here on
18 Staten Island? Or do you know, where the big drugs
19 are coming from, the big numbers?
20 JAMES J. HUNT: Yeah, I think it's important
21 to note that New York is, and always has been, a hub
22 for heroin distribution in the United States.
23 20 percent of all DEA seizures of heroin are
24 here in New York.
25 What is -- what's been happening in the last
111
1 seven or eight years, that's changed the trafficking
2 somewhat is, is the Mexican crime groups are
3 flooding New York with heroin.
4 In all cities.
5 The gentleman talked about Vermont before.
6 It's all over the city. We're -- we seized
7 70 kilos of heroin since January 1st here in
8 New York. That's an ungodly amount of dope.
9 It's not putting a dent in them. They just
10 have more cars, more trucks, crossing the border.
11 What we get, we get.
12 What they get through, hits the streets.
13 They're trying to create a bigger market for
14 heroin.
15 These stories are sad.
16 I'm sitting here -- what people are going to
17 understand, you're not going to arrest yourself out
18 of this problem.
19 If you're a major drug trafficker here in the
20 United States, local and federal law enforcement are
21 very, very effective in catching you. The federal
22 and state prisons are filled with bad top-echelon
23 dope dealers.
24 You've got a short shelf life: You're going
25 to go to jail, or get killed.
112
1 The problem is, there's always going to be
2 some young punk underneath there that's willing to
3 take a shot.
4 So, as law enforcement, we sympathize,
5 empathize with parents who have gone through this.
6 There's no lower life than someone who would
7 sell poison to people.
8 And, law enforcement is doing what we're
9 supposed to do: we're locking up those bad guys.
10 But we're not going be able to save kids.
11 Parents, prevention, have to do that. These
12 kids got to be scared to death to even try it in the
13 first time.
14 These crime groups, as sophisticated as they
15 are, we're catching them.
16 "Chapo" Guzman, number one guy in the world,
17 wanted; DEA caught him.
18 So, they are getting caught, but,
19 unfortunately, right now, with the Mexican border
20 proximity to the United States, how porous it is,
21 they're flooding the market.
22 So parents, be beware.
23 The full intent is to get people hooked.
24 It's cheap. They're making it themselves
25 now. There's labs in Mexico now, where they used to
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1 get all the time from the South Americans,
2 Columbians. They're actually going the poppy in
3 Mexico. They can convert it there in Mexico.
4 So, they're selling kilos of heroin for
5 $50,000.
6 30 years ago, when organized crime was
7 controlling it, it was $200,000 a kilo.
8 And it's more pure.
9 So that's what you're dealing with.
10 We are catching the bad guys, we're doing
11 everything we can, but, we're not going be able to
12 arrest ourselves out of this problem.
13 ASST. CHIEF EDWARD DELATORRE: You know, if
14 I can add just one comment?
15 I think early intervention, obviously, is
16 probably the best weapon a parent would have.
17 But, unfortunately, we put all our efforts
18 into raising these kids, and the last thing we want
19 to believe is that something's wrong.
20 And, we get it all the time.
21 I get calls from people: Chief, you know, my
22 kid's a good kid. They arrested my kid. The cops
23 are wrong. He was just holding it for his friend.
24 His friend gave it to him.
25 You know, I get it all the time.
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1 People on drugs don't always tell the truth.
2 And the parents have to understand, whether
3 your son or daughter had the drugs and admitted it,
4 or was holding it for someone and admitted it, if
5 they're in that environment with other kids -- and
6 I heard this said already -- if they're in that
7 environment, with other kids that had drugs, you
8 have a problem. And you better get on it quick.
9 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you very much.
10 SENATOR LANZA: A comment, and then questions
11 from the audience that I have here.
12 We've talked about the I-STOP a number of
13 times here, and there's this notion that I think is
14 floating out there.
15 I don't want the information to be
16 misinterpreted.
17 So there's this notion that because I-STOP is
18 going to dry up the supply of access -- illicit
19 access to prescription pills, that, somehow, that is
20 why people are -- you know, we see heroin addiction
21 on the increase.
22 That's partially true, but not for the
23 reasons why people are saying.
24 Long before I-STOP came into being and became
25 law, we saw heroin use increase exponentially every
115
1 year.
2 And what we learned, and if you listened to
3 the stories of the young people out there, and what
4 you've heard, and I quoted the statistic before,
5 over 80 percent of the people who try heroin for the
6 first time were already addicted on prescription
7 drugs. "Over 80 percent."
8 So what we learned with this insidious
9 epidemic of prescription drugs is that, where
10 there's a certain barrier to entry with heroin,
11 there are many folks who would never try heroin,
12 because you have to go to a certain, behind some
13 building, and deal with a drug dealer on the street.
14 You would never do it.
15 We see by the thousands, young people are,
16 though, willing to try a pill, because it's
17 happening.
18 It's given to them by a friend. It's in your
19 medicine cabinet. It was prescribed by a doctor.
20 It has a nice label on it. We live in a society
21 where we think all the solutions are in that bottle.
22 And, so, that is why so many people, young
23 people, say: Why not? It's safe, I'll do it.
24 That is the gateway to the heroin, and that's
25 why we see the heroin explosion.
116
1 So our hope, my point here is, with I-STOP
2 drying up that supply, that we'll see fewer people
3 getting involved in the gateway to that -- to the
4 heroin epidemic.
5 There are a couple of questions, I'm going to
6 put them together.
7 The basic theme here, to law enforcement, is:
8 People are citing their own experiences,
9 whether it's at a train station or on the corner,
10 they see all the signs of the drug trade on the
11 street.
12 They know you're doing a good job.
13 I can tell you, they're doing an incredible
14 job.
15 Their question, though, is a question I have
16 as well: Do you have enough resources here on
17 Staten Island, in law enforcement, to tackle the
18 problem that we have on the streets?
19 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Should we all say "no" at
20 the same time?
21 CAPTAIN DOMINICK DORAZIO: I mean, with the
22 state of the department as it is right now,
23 I believe that we do have enough resources. I mean,
24 we are able to handle our workload, you know, pretty
25 effectively.
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1 Obviously, you know, more personnel is
2 welcome.
3 I mean -- and I think that goes for the --
4 I'm sure the Chief could attest to that, as far as
5 the patrol borough goes, as far as the narcotics
6 borough goes.
7 Yes, obviously, more personnel would make us
8 more effective, but I do think that we are able to
9 handle our workload with our current personnel.
10 SENATOR LANZA: There's a question from Fern.
11 Fern, why don't you -- Fern, why don't you --
12 let's hear from you, instead of me reading this.
13 Introduce yourself, tell everyone who you
14 are.
15 FERN ZAGOR: Can I take back my card?
16 Because I forgot what I wrote.
17 [Laughter.]
18 FERN ZAGOR: Thank you for this opportunity.
19 I'm Fern Zagor. I'm the president and CEO of
20 the Staten Island Mental Health Society.
21 I'm also one of the co-founders of the
22 Tackling Youth Substance Abuse Initiative, and very
23 proud of the work that we do.
24 Staten Island Mental Health has a licensed
25 substance-abuse program, and we treat youth through
118
1 our teen center, about 200 substance-abusing youth,
2 and their families, every year.
3 But what we've learned is that, youth
4 beginning to experiment with alcohol and drugs, they
5 don't come to us, and they're not going to come us,
6 no matter how often they're referred to us.
7 They don't seek our help.
8 They need help on their own turf in their own
9 communities.
10 Current regulations don't allow this.
11 We can only provide early-intervention
12 programs and treatment services at licensed
13 locations. Makes it very difficult.
14 We know that if we reach out to the kids in
15 their community, we have a chance of engaging them
16 early on in their youth -- in their use, and perhaps
17 preventing them from increasing and becoming
18 addicts.
19 Licensing doesn't allow it, regulations don't
20 allow it, funding doesn't allow that.
21 Prevention services are usually
22 group-education approaches offered primarily in
23 school settings. This has limited, if any, effect
24 on youth in the community who are already using or
25 on the road to abuse. They kind of laugh it off.
119
1 You know, they're hearing things in the school.
2 It affects kids.
3 You know, there are kids that they're going
4 to grab early on, and they may learn, and that will
5 prevent them from using, and they're learning those
6 coping skills.
7 But those kids who are already experimenting,
8 that doesn't touch them.
9 So, again, we need those early-intervention
10 approaches that engage kids, one-on-one, in small
11 groups, in their community.
12 The regulations have to allow that, the
13 funding has to allow that.
14 We've done some of that work with
15 private-foundation money, and we know that it can
16 work at least for some.
17 Now, the public, the State, needs to be able
18 to follow suit and provide us with those kind of
19 prevention dollars.
20 Thank you.
21 [Applause.]
22 SENATOR LANZA: Michael, over here.
23 Thanks, Fern.
24 CAROL: [Speaking without microphone.]
25 My name is Carol. I'm a recovering
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1 alcoholic, and I'm a teacher.
2 SENATOR BOYLE: Can you just -- it's for the
3 recording that we need the microphone.
4 CAROL: Oh, okay.
5 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you.
6 CAROL: And I was admonished for discussing
7 drug prevention in an eighth-grade class.
8 Talking to the kids about senioritis, and,
9 how, when they would leave -- you know, when you
10 come to school as kindergarten, you're adorable.
11 You're the bottom, everybody thinks you're so cute.
12 You get to fifth grade, you're the top
13 banana.
14 You go to junior high, you get squished like
15 a bug again.
16 You go to the eighth grade, you're the top
17 banana again.
18 Then you go to high school, you're squished
19 like a bug.
20 My daughter found pot at IS-75, which
21 I doubled my rent to get her to IS-75.
22 Pot was the gateway drug for her.
23 Xanax, she got at Tottenville High School.
24 So it was the best schools. It didn't matter
25 which shore: south shore or north shore.
121
1 And, I took her to Dynamite on Coney Island,
2 and I knew they will wouldn't take her. They told
3 her she wasn't enough of an addict because she
4 didn't use heroin or cocaine.
5 And, I have to tell you, treatment court
6 helped, and TASK helped.
7 And I don't know, is TASK still here?
8 Because --
9 [Multiple people say "Yes."]
10 CAROL: Okay.
11 Because I was very involved with them.
12 It took her three years to graduate from
13 treatment court. Three years for a one-year
14 program.
15 She went upstate, she went to Daytop,
16 Forest Avenue. All of it, it didn't mean anything.
17 She loves pot.
18 Thank God, no pills. Scared the hell out of
19 her, but she thinks pot is the be-all, end-all.
20 And so does Cuomo.
21 I mean, we're hearing about legalizing it.
22 [Laughter.]
23 CAROL: You know, I was a certified drug
24 counselor before I was a teacher. State certified.
25 I was a SPARK counselor for 8 years at
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1 Lincoln High School. So I know all about this
2 stuff.
3 And I have 38 years sober.
4 [Applause.]
5 CAROL: My daughter grew up in a 12-step
6 household. It didn't matter.
7 What mattered is what happened in school.
8 Not what happened in my drug cabinet, in this
9 drug cabinet, in the neighbor.
10 It was what was at school.
11 You want to feel better, at Tottenville,
12 there's a corner that they call the
13 "90-Degree Angle." Right across the street, and
14 they smoke dope.
15 And it was called "dope" in my day. Pot was
16 call "dope" because it made you dopey; because it
17 killed your brain cells.
18 And these kids, when they see it legalized on
19 TV, and they see these people, look what they look
20 like. "Oh, yeah man, it's now legal."
21 They look like a bunch of bums.
22 You don't see them well-dressed, saying,
23 "Oh, now it's legal."
24 [Laughter.]
25 CAROL: What I'm saying is, I was written up.
123
1 I'm a sub, I'm an ATR; one of those traveling
2 teachers, at a junior high, as a sub. Didn't have
3 time to do the regular busy work-lesson plan.
4 Talked to the kids about respect for each
5 other. About, as the world gives to you, that's
6 what you get back. Talked to them about senioritis.
7 About how, if kids fail, they want you to fail.
8 They want to pull you down with, stick with the
9 winners.
10 And I was admonished for non-professional
11 behavior, at a junior high right here on
12 Staten Island.
13 So I just -- I just came, and I ran from
14 school as soon as it was out, to get here.
15 I really appreciate that you're doing this.
16 You have no idea that I'm a fan of yours,
17 Senator Lanza.
18 [Laughter.]
19 [Applause.]
20 CAROL: Well, I know Susan very well.
21 I know your sister, and your wife.
22 [Laughter.]
23 CAROL: But, truly, prevention is the
24 schools.
25 [Applause.]
124
1 CAROL: All these treatment facilities,
2 they're not going to go unless there's prevention
3 from kindergarten, on up.
4 You want to talk about getting them ready for
5 college in kindergarten? That's a joke.
6 Get them ready to be drug-free in
7 kindergarten.
8 [Applause.]
9 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you.
10 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I would like to say
11 something.
12 SENATOR BOYLE: You do bring up a good point.
13 And all of us in Albany are fans of
14 Senator Lanza, as well.
15 [Laughter.]
16 SENATOR BOYLE: And I'm not going tell your
17 daughter that you added her as a pot-smoker in front
18 of all of these law-enforcement officials.
19 [Laughter.]
20 SENATOR BOYLE: But you answered a good
21 question about the age. Appropriate age prevention.
22 And I'll ask the panelists up here: Do --
23 anybody have an idea of what is age-appropriate?
24 Yeah, James.
25 JAMES FIORE, JR.: I would like to speak.
125
1 I know that, in my neighborhood, on the
2 south shore, in Annandale, and in many
3 neighborhoods, when we were growing up, there were
4 two things that we would -- well, we never said we
5 would do drugs.
6 But there's two things that we would never,
7 ever could conceive, and that is cocaine and heroin.
8 And what -- and I heard a woman ask, What can
9 be done for children at a young age, to prevent
10 this?
11 Prescription opiates need to be looked at as
12 heroin, as crack, because that's what they are. It
13 is synthetic heroin.
14 [Applause.]
15 JAMES FIORE, JR.: Thank you.
16 And at young ages, these pills need to be put
17 on this same category as these drugs.
18 Because I know that no kid in my
19 neighborhood, at the age that I took my first
20 Percocet, would take a bag of Coke or a bag of dope.
21 And, you know, I hate to be so blunt.
22 And, you know, I want to say one more thing:
23 You know, regarding Suboxone, it doesn't work
24 for everyone. It worked for me.
25 And, you know, long-term treatment may work
126
1 for some people, and outpatient may work for some
2 people, but there's a saying in recovery, and I'm
3 sure everyone's familiar with it: You can lead a
4 horse to water but you can't make it drink.
5 You know.
6 [Applause.]
7 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you very much.
8 Mic over here.
9 ANN: Hi, my name is Ann.
10 And, the very first thing I want to say is,
11 I'm extremely grateful for everyone in this room,
12 for all the humanity in this room, your interest in
13 this disease.
14 Candace, I want to thank you; all the
15 parents; everybody that's sharing their story.
16 But when I read your son's obituary, it blew
17 me out of the water, because I always wondered if
18 I would have the courage to say that.
19 Whenever I read those kids that are -- "died
20 at home," I know what it is, and I don't want to be
21 that parent.
22 I don't know, today I'm not, but I don't know
23 what tomorrow is going to bring.
24 I thought that was amazing courage, and it's
25 the first step --
127
1 [Applause.]
2 ANN: -- not just all of us to say we have to
3 remove the stigma. But, anybody who says, it's very
4 difficult for me to say, my son is in recovery.
5 Totally, it was not in the script. Just, it was
6 impossible to happen to us, and it did.
7 And everybody can talk about it, but when you
8 put it in the paper, it was right out there for
9 everyone: This is a fact. This is life. This is
10 what's going on.
11 I thank you.
12 Thank you.
13 CANDACE CRUPI: You're welcome.
14 If more kids would see it, they'd be afraid,
15 maybe.
16 ANN: I'm sorry?
17 CANDACE CRUPI: I said, more kids should see
18 it, maybe they'd be more afraid.
19 ANN: That was the thing.
20 When I went to high school, they gave us one
21 tip: Go to heroin, there's no coming back.
22 And when my son was given Suboxone, he says
23 to me: Do you know that's the same thing they give
24 to people on heroin?
25 I was, like, What? You don't know this?
128
1 He's 29 years old. How did he miss this day
2 in school? I don't know.
3 But, anyway, it's a family disease, it's a
4 community disease.
5 And the thing that I'm struggling with today,
6 and I would like to leave today, maybe the medical
7 people could help me, is, my family members are on
8 board some days, and not on board other days.
9 And, when they get frustrated, and they're
10 busy with their own lives, they say: He chose to do
11 it. It's not a disease. He can stop if he wants
12 to.
13 And every day I have to remind myself, and
14 I have to be extremely patient: Patience beyond
15 patience.
16 And, I need the phrase or the words to say to
17 them, "It is a disease."
18 Sometimes I say, you know, your brother has
19 cancer. And some days he believes me, and some days
20 he doesn't.
21 I need the words to convince people, this is
22 a disease.
23 That's what I'm asking you.
24 [Applause.]
25 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Hi, I'd like to just offer
129
1 a response to you.
2 And I think one of the biggest things that we
3 need to do is education, because, without education,
4 there's no understanding.
5 So, maybe what you could impart to your
6 family and friends, is really providing them with
7 education that we give in programs, that you can get
8 on the Internet, that you can get in any of the
9 agencies here.
10 But education and prevention are really what
11 we need to do as a community.
12 SENATOR LANZA: Doctor?
13 DR. HILLARY KUNINS: Thank you for that
14 question.
15 I can just share with you what I've used in
16 my own practice, and in my own personal life, which
17 is, some of you heard this yesterday, is I find the
18 analogy of diabetes very useful in speaking to
19 people.
20 You wouldn't ask a diabetic to stop his or
21 her treatment with insulin, you wouldn't ask a
22 diabetic to start eating chocolate cake, and expect
23 it to go just fine.
24 It's just the same thing: It's a processing
25 problem in the body.
130
1 In this case, it's a substance, a drug, and
2 not sugar, but it's not that much different.
3 LUKE NASTA: As far as answering the question
4 about: Where do you go for information? How do you
5 get support?
6 Programs like the YMCA Counseling Service,
7 Camelot.
8 I'm not sure who else has family
9 associations.
10 But -- and it doesn't cost -- there's no fee
11 involved. They're weekly meetings, and you're there
12 with other family members who are going through the
13 struggle.
14 And you get educated, and you get support,
15 and you get the ammunition that you need to deal
16 with the problem in your home.
17 JACQUELINE FIORE: And there's programs
18 available for kids, too.
19 I mean, we talk all the time about this being
20 a family disease.
21 And it's often the brothers and sisters and
22 the little ones that are suffering in silence, and
23 they want to be good, so that they don't have to be
24 a problem for mom or dad like their brother or
25 sister. Or, they're crying out for attention by
131
1 being, you know, bad, quote/unquote.
2 So there's programs out there for the kids,
3 who can help them to find the words to express what
4 they're feeling. And, also, to arm them with coping
5 skills so that they can combat life on life's terms
6 later on in their own lives, and don't have to
7 travel down the road of their siblings.
8 SENATOR BOYLE: I would say, just before
9 coming here, I got a chance to tour YMCA, and the
10 Little Steps Program for the younger siblings was
11 very impressive.
12 DIANA DULCHE pph: Hi, my name is
13 Diana Dulche [ph].
14 I started my journey because I wanted to help
15 myself heal. Not through drugs or any of that.
16 But I had ailments that I was told that
17 I needed operations, and I helped myself heal.
18 I had fourth-stage spondylolisthesis.
19 But my point is, we're given something, and
20 people say, you can't be cured, you know, unless you
21 get an operation.
22 Which, I don't believe in, and, I healed
23 myself.
24 When I was 37, I had fourth-stage
25 spondylolisthesis. I used to get out of bed like a
132
1 90-year-old woman.
2 So how I healed myself was, you know, getting
3 my core strong.
4 So this is my point, is: I started educating
5 as a holistic health practitioner. And I wanted to
6 open up a wellness center.
7 And I said: The body could always heal. No
8 matter what you do, you can always heal it.
9 And, you know, lo and behold, I was hit upon
10 with my son. He had the addiction to the opiates,
11 because he had a knee operation, and he got addicted
12 to the opiates.
13 And so, me, as studying as a holistic
14 practitioner I wanted to open up a wellness center,
15 "Feel great, one, two, three," because I believed
16 the body could heal.
17 And if you give it the right stuff, it can
18 heal. You have to get to the root.
19 Because no matter -- you can't heal with
20 drugs. You can't heal drugs with drugs. You have
21 to let the body heal itself.
22 So, you have to use alternative methods. You
23 have to use meditation. You have to use -- get deep
24 within yourself. You need to talk to a
25 hypnotherapist. You need to do whatever you need to
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1 do with this.
2 But I don't feel that any one particular
3 thing could help.
4 But, if you try to meditate, or add -- add
5 these different things into society, to help, and
6 not look at it as an alternative method, because
7 these are things that God gave us, so they should be
8 the first method.
9 The way that people are eating, the
10 nutrition, sometimes it causes the neurotransmitters
11 to not be functioning properly.
12 Dehydration is actually one of the top causes
13 of the neurotransmitters not being proper.
14 So what do people do? What do the kids do?
15 They try to go for drugs that are going to
16 help the neurotransmitters get leveled.
17 So this is -- we're not looking in the right
18 direction.
19 We're not looking in the right direction.
20 We have to heal ourselves, from the root,
21 from the beginning, and, less drugs, and try to help
22 each other.
23 Thank you.
24 [Applause.]
25 SENATOR BOYLE: Mic.
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1 ROBERTA THOMAS: My name is Roberta Thomas.
2 I'm a retired mental-health nurse.
3 I've worked with patients with substance
4 abuse in the course of my career, over 40 years.
5 And I also work with the Port Richmond
6 Community Emergency Response Team.
7 So I'm interested in knowing how I could
8 learn or be certified to provide emergency care if
9 we come upon someone who has an overdose.
10 But before you get into answering that
11 question, I just wanted to state that education is
12 the most important thing, but I think we start way
13 too late.
14 We need to start the way we start with our
15 children about smoking and how terrible it is for
16 them. We need to start in the fifth and
17 sixth grade. Teach them before they come across
18 people who are offering them things, before this
19 stage. Make them aware that how dangerous it is,
20 early on.
21 Don't wait till junior high and high school,
22 because that's when they want to do what everyone
23 else is doing.
24 They lose their independence.
25 They want to say: Oh, I want to be with the
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1 group, so I'm going to do whatever they're doing no
2 matter how dangerous it is.
3 Get them before that stage.
4 And the other thing is, we talk about victims
5 all the time: What we're going to do to the
6 victims, and we're going to put them in jail, we're
7 going to put them in rehab.
8 What about these suppliers?
9 Not just the dealers. The ones above the
10 dealers that are bringing this crap into this
11 country, into our state, into our community,
12 destroying us, all our children.
13 This has to stop.
14 And we need to get to the suppliers.
15 I know that it goes on and on. You say,
16 Well, we arrest this one, we arrest that one, and
17 they still put many more coming along.
18 But what's the real root of this?
19 Those crops that they're growing in whatever
20 country they're growing it in, and bringing it over
21 here, this could be stopped.
22 If we can stop terrorists, we have to be able
23 to stop this. This is a terror on our community.
24 And that's all I have to say.
25 Just tell me about where I can get help in
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1 getting certified.
2 [Applause.]
3 ADRIENNE ABBATE: So I just wanted to speak
4 quickly to this idea of education, and what age we
5 should start talking to kids.
6 Okay, the research shows that prevention
7 should begin in the earliest grades. And, what we
8 should be focusing on a lot is on life skills, and
9 how to develop coping mechanisms, and how to deal
10 with issues that are going to come along later in
11 life.
12 And these programs have been shown to reduce
13 substance abuse in youth, as teenagers, and above.
14 And, then, chose also to play a part on other
15 interrelated social issues, such as bullying and
16 suicide.
17 And, it's all interrelated.
18 So I know that the State Health Department is
19 overburdened, and that we spend so much time
20 preparing our kids, as you mentioned, to be
21 college-ready.
22 But we need to make a case that a mentally
23 healthy child is going to be a high-performing
24 child, so this really has to be a message that we
25 start early on.
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1 And I want I want to defer to Chazie [ph.] to
2 talk about, there was a question specifically about
3 how to become a Narcan responder.
4 And we have partners in the community who are
5 going out and training members.
6 [Applause.]
7 DIANE ARNETT: So, uhm, Community Health
8 Action of Staten Island is one of the main agencies
9 on Staten Island that's actually certified as an
10 opioid-overdose prevention trainer.
11 And, so, we've been actually doing
12 presentations in the community, but you can also
13 call us. I'm going to have to look at my staff
14 about what number to call.
15 So, we do both group trainings for people
16 to -- and we train people, how to do -- how to
17 recognize an overdose, and then how to reverse an
18 overdose using in naloxone, which is a nasal spray
19 which actually will bring somebody out of an
20 overdose.
21 In the last week, I think we trained -- 50,
22 80 -- about 100 -- 75 to 100 people.
23 Both, we had a training at our office, and we
24 had our training at Our Lady Star of the Sea, with a
25 support group for parents and family members who are
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1 affected by this issue.
2 So, I mean, people can come up and ask us
3 later. Some of my staff are here.
4 We can actually -- we can do it for
5 individuals, if individuals come to our office.
6 Or, if you have a group of people that want
7 to get this information, we can bring our staff to
8 do the training.
9 And it's very quick. It's not -- this is not
10 a 3-hour training. It's 45 minutes, at best.
11 We'll train you, and then we actually supply
12 people with the kits, to be able to do the overdose.
13 The same things that the NYPD is using and
14 that EMS uses.
15 SENATOR BOYLE: We also did a training in my
16 office, with my staff, Stevie and Krista here. We
17 had over 150 people doing it.
18 It is -- as a former EMT, I have seen Narcan
19 work, and it is a miracle drug. It gives people the
20 second chance that they need, to get into recovery,
21 and save lives, without a doubt.
22 And as was mentioned before, there's been
23 hundreds of lives saved here.
24 We also -- Senator Savino and Senator Lanza
25 and Assemblyman Cusick are going to be hosting a
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1 training here on Staten Island, so I urge all of you
2 to attend. As was said, it's less than an hour, and
3 you'll be certified, you'll get a kit.
4 And, I hope you never have to use it, but if
5 you do need it, it will save a life.
6 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone used.]
7 Can I say something?
8 SENATOR BOYLE: Yes.
9 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone used.]
10 [Inaudible] put these commercials on smoking,
11 and showing people's lungs.
12 What about showing something -- on more
13 advertisements on television?
14 That's what most people will see.
15 BRIAN HUNT: Go back to the --
16 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [Inaudible.]
17 BRIAN HUNT: What they should do is go back
18 to the fried egg. "This is your brain on drugs."
19 It says it all.
20 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone used.]
21 Yeah, I mean, really, there should be more
22 advertisements. This is such a critical situation
23 [inaudible] that shows really what we have, and
24 maybe it would scare the children.
25 [Inaudible.]
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1 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [Inaudible.]
2 THOMAS: Hi, my name is Thomas, and I'm
3 coming up on two years clean in about two days, on
4 May 4th.
5 [Applause.]
6 THOMAS: And for me, I think a long program
7 is definitely necessary, because, I'm coming up on
8 two years, I'm still in the program in Dynamite with
9 them. And, you know, sometimes I still need help,
10 and I still go through hard times.
11 So I think a long-term program is definitely
12 necessary.
13 Even earlier in my program, when I was about
14 six months, you know, I still hadn't really made a
15 decision completely.
16 And it was months into the program, and I was
17 just coming up to making the decision of, "What do
18 I really want to do, and, you know, can I really do
19 it?" And the doubts were coming.
20 So, I think it's definitely necessary to be
21 in a program for a long time, away from home, with a
22 bunch of people.
23 You know, I was, like -- I was living there
24 for 13 months.
25 And, you know, now that I look back on it, it
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1 was a great experience.
2 But, a little bit of my history:
3 I started using when I was 12. And, when
4 I was 12, I smoked pot for the first time, and
5 drank, and then I was mixing both. And then, before
6 that year ended, I was doing morphine and fentanyl,
7 at 12 years old.
8 And, you know, it just took over completely.
9 You know, I didn't have a care in the world.
10 And I think, you know, something you guys
11 were talking about before was: How could you
12 realize if your kid's doing drugs?
13 Personally, my personal experience, I think
14 it's really obvious.
15 At least in my case it was. It took me over
16 completely.
17 I didn't care about my mom, my dad, my
18 sister. I stole jewelry. I was, you know, acting
19 up in the house.
20 It was bad. It was really bad.
21 I just think that the options are good. You
22 know, there's all different ways of doing this.
23 My way was long-term.
24 I was doing heroin, LSD, when I was 17, 18,
25 all the time.
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1 And, you know, I think that long-term for me
2 was necessary, but I think there's all different
3 paths in life for people who have addiction.
4 You know, I think -- I didn't use Suboxone,
5 but, I've seen people use Suboxone, and then come
6 off of it and do fine.
7 You know, so, I definitely respect the
8 different paths that everybody takes.
9 And, you know, I just -- I think we have to
10 work, really, as a team. No, like, one person can
11 do this. This finger shouldn't really be pointed at
12 one person.
13 You know, I think it's just a good thing that
14 we're all here together, trying to figure this out,
15 you know.
16 And, thank you, and I hope everybody has a
17 good day.
18 [Applause.]
19 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you very much, and good
20 luck in your recovery.
21 We've got one more?
22 Okay, let me just get some comments from --
23 we've got people from the treatment and recovery.
24 Gary, or somebody else, in recovery, would
25 you like to --
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1 JACQUELINE FIORE: I wanted to say, the point
2 that Tom brings up is huge.
3 We know, and the research tells us, that a
4 whole -- having somebody go through the entire
5 continuum of care is going to be what works the
6 best.
7 Starting with a long-term intensive program,
8 and dropping down in intensity to a long-term
9 outpatient program, is really what is needed in
10 order to bring somebody with the severe level of
11 addiction into recovery.
12 And, as treatment providers, unfortunately,
13 we're just as frustrated as families at times,
14 because, what we know is going to work for somebody,
15 sometimes they can't see, sometimes the insurance
16 company can't see, sometimes the family member can't
17 see.
18 And we have to sit back and watch them travel
19 down a road that we don't want to see them travel
20 down.
21 And, we're sitting here today because we want
22 to be a part of the solution, along with you guys,
23 and we don't know all of the answers.
24 We need to hear you guys speak as openly and
25 honestly as you did today, because that's going to
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1 be what helps us to make change.
2 We are speaking to these people every day
3 that we have the opportunity.
4 But, until they hear the real-life stories,
5 and the courage that you guys have had to share
6 those, is so impactful.
7 And I hope that you know that the time that
8 you spent here today is really going be what helps
9 us to make a change.
10 We need the power brought back into the
11 treatment-provider's hands.
12 We need to be able to tell insurance
13 companies: It doesn't matter what you think is
14 going to work. We know what's going to work. This
15 is what our tool has told us.
16 And that's what we need.
17 [Applause.]
18 ADRIENNE ABBATE: Thank you.
19 GARY BUTCHEN: Can I just build on that for a
20 moment?
21 I mean, in listening to all the frustration
22 and all the stories that have been expressed today,
23 I know from my dealings with the managed-care
24 companies, that their whole intent is the cost
25 shift.
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1 So, the gentleman who paid out of pocket, the
2 time woman who drained her pension fund, the people
3 who go to Florida or Texas, that's an intentional
4 manipulation by the insurance companies, by the
5 managed-care folks, to cost-shift either onto the
6 State of New York, because when you go to Camelot or
7 Daytop or Dynamite, those programs are through
8 net-deficit funding, through the State. The
9 insurance companies, none of them, A through Z, pay
10 for that level of care.
11 So what I've been advocating for, and
12 attending these meetings, and meeting with the
13 Assemblymen and some of the Senators, is the
14 access-to-care bills.
15 I think defining "medical necessity" in
16 New York State will force the insurance companies to
17 abide by the rules, whether it's through enforcement
18 through DFS or any of the other branches.
19 I heard the frustration about getting into a
20 detox, getting into an outpatient.
21 I run an outpatient network. I didn't set it
22 up to fail.
23 My staff are all doctors, psychologists,
24 nurses, counselors. We didn't go to school so we
25 could sit across from somebody and say "Fail so that
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1 you can get to a higher"...
2 We're not a conduit.
3 But, I understand the language that's being
4 spoken to families. I understand the frustration
5 that people are dealing with.
6 And when someone sits across from me, and
7 their family has finally got them in my door and
8 they desperately want to go to a higher level of
9 care, and the insurance company says, "Fail," their
10 intent is to fail.
11 It's a horribly frustrating situation.
12 New York State is so regulated.
13 I understand -- I don't agree,
14 I understand -- why someone can't get into an
15 inpatient detox. I understand why they can't get
16 into a rehab.
17 But when they go to New Jersey, they cross
18 the bridge, that program isn't in-network with any
19 insurance company.
20 So what they're doing is, they're billing the
21 hell out of your out-of-network benefit. You're
22 getting hit with deductibles, your copays, and all
23 your other bills. And you're draining your pension
24 funds.
25 They'll take you today, because they don't
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1 have to worry about managed care or insurance, as
2 long as you're willing to put up your life savings.
3 You send them down to Florida, it's the same
4 thing. They have what they call the
5 "Florida model," which is all based on
6 out-of-network benefits.
7 They drain your inpatient, your outpatient;
8 your left, your right, your up, your down.
9 You come back to your community where you
10 live, you can't afford to come into a community
11 provider.
12 So whatever we can do as treatment providers,
13 whatever I can do as an advocate, to try to get
14 access-to-care bills passed in some way, some form,
15 that defines "medical necessity."
16 I think it's all about the cost shift, and it
17 would help a lot of the frustrations that you've
18 heard here today.
19 [Applause.]
20 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you very much.
21 Luke, would you like to say something?
22 LUKE NASTA: I mean, Senator Boyle, you're in
23 the right place on Staten Island, where this is an
24 ongoing funeral here. A week doesn't go by where we
25 don't hear about 19-, 23-year-olds, that say
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1 "Good night," and come out of their parent's
2 bedrooms feet first.
3 That's the reality.
4 That's the reality of Staten Island.
5 There's many things, many things, that we
6 need to do here.
7 For one thing, the Staten Island community
8 needs to embrace the problem; that is, own the
9 problem, and, embrace and own the solution; so that
10 when the YMCA or Camelot or Daytop wants to open a
11 counseling service on New Dorp Lane, that we're not
12 tarred and feathered and run out of the community.
13 [Applause.]
14 LUKE NASTA: That's going to take a major
15 change.
16 And if we're going to confront and control
17 this epidemic, we're going to need to have, us, the
18 solution, available, and visible, throughout the
19 community. And more people will come for help.
20 Now, the gentleman over here, about -- you
21 know, Camelot has 45 beds on Staten Island, and
22 it's, pretty much, we're full. But, given the
23 nature of the population, it's an unstable
24 population, so the beds keep opening up.
25 But for the most part, you know, we can get
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1 you a bed in a couple of days, or immediately.
2 And probably within two months, we're going
3 to open another 24-bed facility in the Port Richmond
4 section.
5 [Applause.]
6 LUKE NASTA: That's nice, but that took me
7 40 years to do that, you know.
8 And in that -- in that story is part of the
9 problem, why we're in the situation we're in today,
10 because we've been denying the extent of problem.
11 We've been resisting.
12 The first time -- our 45-bed facility is on
13 the grounds of the Sea View Hospital Campus.
14 The first time I went there, to propose using
15 one of the 75 vacant buildings that The City Health
16 and Hospitals Corporation controlled, was 1977.
17 And we opened up two years ago.
18 [Applause.]
19 LUKE NASTA: But at the rate of 50 to
20 70 people dying a year, how many could we have
21 possibly saved?
22 Now, and to address the criticism of, you
23 know, the YMCA or Camelot, or Suboxone, the research
24 indicates, "five attempts," five attempts --
25 Doesn't want me to say "attempts."
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1 [Laughter.]
2 LUKE NASTA: -- five attempts at treatment
3 before a patient stabilizes, before it works.
4 That's the average: five attempts.
5 So, we don't have a silver bullet.
6 We don't pretend to have a silver bullet to
7 slay the monster.
8 What we do have is commitment.
9 We've got commitment. We'll stay with you.
10 We'll take you back. We'll -- we're the medics on
11 the battlefield. We'll bring you in no matter what
12 condition you're in, and we'll try to -- we'll try
13 to restore you.
14 We have no control over the war, because
15 you're going back out there again. But we'll be
16 there for you.
17 And if it isn't Camelot, it will be the YMCA,
18 it will be -- it will be somebody.
19 But we need, we need support.
20 Now, I have a suggestion for Senator Boyle,
21 who's doing a fantastic job in addressing this for
22 New York State.
23 And --
24 [Applause.]
25 LUKE NASTA: -- what I would suggest is --
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1 and I have been at this a long time, and I listened
2 to a lot of government double-talk. And it's a
3 disgrace that the Governor of the state of New York
4 has not acknowledged this problem yet.
5 Meanwhile, border states, like Vermont and
6 Massachusetts, their governors have declared a state
7 of public-health emergency.
8 I haven't heard anything from our Governor.
9 Okay, that's enough about him.
10 But what -- and, so, "his office," his office
11 is the state of -- is the Office of Alcoholism and
12 Substance Abuse Services. They consistently say
13 there are empty beds now.
14 That's a truth, there are empty beds, because
15 the system that was in place, because we couldn't
16 open up smaller operations, which would be more
17 effective, they just kept giving more money for more
18 beds to single organizations, so that you have
19 250-bed treatment programs.
20 Okay, those beds are not full on an ongoing
21 basis.
22 What I would suggest to Senator Boyle, is to
23 identify, have the State identify, those beds in the
24 large programs that are vacant for, whatever, 30,
25 60 days. Take that money, and dedicate it to
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1 opening new, smaller programs, throughout
2 Staten Island, throughout the state.
3 It will be more effective as a treatment
4 program, and, it will be more visible; so,
5 therefore, it will be, also, approaching the whole
6 stigma problem, if there are more programs like
7 this.
8 And it doesn't necessarily have to cost the
9 State a lot more money to do that.
10 Early intervention, all right, how do we do
11 prevention?
12 I'm not real popular with a lot of people.
13 That's okay.
14 SENATOR SAVINO: We love you.
15 LUKE NASTA: Not always.
16 [Laughter.]
17 LUKE NASTA: The New York City Board of
18 Education is negligent on this issue.
19 Where is the last place --
20 [Applause.]
21 LUKE NASTA: -- the last place that kids are
22 required to be, by law? School. High school.
23 They're required, by law, up until, what,
24 maybe age 16, when they could be signed out, to be
25 there.
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1 So, why, when we have them in the place where
2 they're required to be, by law, don't we do
3 assessments of the -- and the entire enrollment,
4 four times a year -- by an independent group, by the
5 way, to do assessments so that there's no conflict
6 of interest there -- that would identify these
7 problems at a very early stage?
8 And how can you do that? There's simple
9 indicators.
10 As some of the parents said, when you notice
11 there's a change in your son's or daughter's
12 friends.
13 Okay, it's not going to -- that's not going
14 to show up in school.
15 But what will up in school is: Truancy. You
16 know, erratic attendance records. A shift in
17 achievements.
18 There are indicators, they're simple
19 indicators, that then -- that would flag that kid.
20 And that team could assess that identified child,
21 and find some problems out, and intervene early.
22 And maybe you find out that it isn't the
23 child that's got the problem, but the problem is in
24 the family.
25 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone used.]
154
1 [Inaudible] in high school, [inaudible]
2 graduated with almost a 90-something average.
3 [Inaudible.]
4 He's 20 years old now.
5 So I'm just going say to you, that they
6 should start in younger grades. Kindergarten.
7 Maybe -- maybe middle school.
8 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Too late. [Inaudible.]
9 [Multiple audience members speaking at
10 the same time.]
11 SENATOR BOYLE: Hold on. Let --
12 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone
13 used/inaudible.]
14 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone used.]
15 [Inaudible.] Like the fried eggs, there is a
16 commercial, every day, about 25 a day, Partnership
17 For A Drug-Free. [Unintelligible] stories, share
18 your recovery, share your disease, people talking
19 about their children, talking about themselves.
20 It's on constantly on the air, all day.
21 AUDIENCE MEMBER: [No microphone used.]
22 But it is not enough. They should show, really,
23 what happens. Show somebody almost dead. Show
24 them --
25 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you very much.
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1 We're just limited on a couple more minutes.
2 Mr. Ferrari, if you would like to...?
3 ANTHONY C. FERRERI: Thank you.
4 And, Mr. Hunt, Mr. and Mrs. Crupi, my
5 condolences.
6 James, thank you for your great courage in
7 coming here today.
8 And I do really appreciate what you've said
9 to all of us here today, and it's a very, very
10 important message.
11 Like Dan and the others, I was asked to come
12 with a prepared statement. That statement's been
13 submitted. It's filled with statistics about what's
14 happened to our community.
15 And at this point, there's really no point in
16 reading this into the record, because I think we've
17 covered all of these statistics, and the epidemic
18 that we see.
19 I'm grateful to Mr. Hunt and to the Crupis,
20 because, they share; they've put a face on
21 statistics.
22 And, in fact, for those of us who work in
23 hospitals, and see what's going on in our emergency
24 rooms, we see those faces each and every day.
25 And it's truly an epidemic.
156
1 I think a lot of this comes down to something
2 that may be more simple, to ally that factor in our
3 issues today, but more difficult to solve; and that
4 is resources.
5 And, I've listened to Gary and Diane, to
6 Luke, to Fern, and the others that are here today;
7 those who are not-for-profit private organizations,
8 that struggle every day to meet the needs of this
9 community.
10 And the fact of the matter is, that
11 Staten Island continues to be the forgotten borough.
12 And, when you take a look at the issues in
13 health and Staten Island, it's no surprise that we
14 lead the five boroughs in addiction.
15 We also lead the five boroughs in cancer,
16 lung disease, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and
17 mortality.
18 And this is the borough with the highest
19 median income in the city of New York.
20 The fact of the matter is, that the City of
21 New York, for every dollar of health care it spends,
22 it spends one-half of one penny on Staten Island.
23 And, I know that I've been saying this for
24 the 11 years that I've been the president of
25 Staten Island University Hospital, but, The Health
157
1 and Hospitals Corporation has no presence in our
2 community. No real presence in our community.
3 The hundreds of thousands of clinic visits
4 that are provided to the people of this borough who
5 cannot afford to pay for their care, are provided by
6 Richmond University Medical Center in Staten Island
7 University Hospital.
8 We need resources.
9 We need resources for prevention, and we need
10 resources for cure.
11 And that's my message for today.
12 Thank you.
13 [Applause.]
14 SENATOR BOYLE: Boris, would you like to say
15 something?
16 BORIS NATZEN: Assemblyman, thank you for
17 inviting me today; Senators and Assemblymen.
18 So I want to say, first, thank you for the
19 I-STOP program. It was a tremendous -- it's
20 tremendous for the pharmacies. It prevent -- it
21 alleviated us from becoming police officers, because
22 that's what was happening in the beginning of this
23 crisis.
24 And, it's a tremendous asset for us. It
25 helps tremendously. I think that it's -- I can say,
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1 it probably knocked it down by 80 to 90 percent from
2 what we see.
3 I came to the realization of this epidemic
4 when we got held up at one of my locations on
5 Staten Island.
6 You know, right on the corner, 10 a.m. in the
7 morning, customers in the store. Two guys walked
8 in, young kids walked in, with a gun, and put it to
9 my pharmacist's head, and asked for the -- for --
10 not for money, which, you know, you would think they
11 would ask for, but they asked for oxycodone. You
12 know, they ran out of the store.
13 Came back a month later and asked for it
14 again. Did not receive it, because we didn't have
15 any in stock. We don't -- we didn't keep it after
16 that.
17 And then they came back again, the third
18 time, but at that time, we already had
19 police officers in the store.
20 So, for them to be so blatant. And, again,
21 all -- every time they came, it was always during
22 the day, 10 a.m., 11 a.m.
23 So, you know, it is an epidemic, and it's
24 tremendous.
25 And I applaud everyone here for coming out
159
1 and making sure that our voices are heard.
2 And, also -- I want to mention, also, you
3 know, we've spoken about insurance companies.
4 You know, there's a mail-order issue that we
5 have in the state, and, where they mail these
6 controlled substances, they drop them on the
7 doorstep. There's 360 pills sitting on somebody's
8 doorstep.
9 So that's an issue that I want to address,
10 with mail-order.
11 I also want to address the issue of, you
12 know, the I-STOP program, correlating with
13 New Jersey. I think that's a tremendous thing that
14 we need, because New Jersey's not too far away, and
15 they can get the prescriptions, go there, pick them
16 up, and come here and be here within 15 minutes.
17 So, we want to make sure that we're able to
18 see if they get them filled in New Jersey, as well.
19 That would be a tremendous help.
20 Also, I wanted to mention:
21 So, some of you guys here might go to a
22 pharmacy and get a prescription for Nexium, and they
23 tell you, you know, it's prior authorization, you
24 can't get it. And, you go crazy trying to get this
25 medication.
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1 And Nexium is a stomach medicine.
2 And, why can't we do that for these
3 controlled substances, make it difficult?
4 The insurances make it very difficult for you
5 to get the medicine.
6 Why can't the community make it very
7 difficult to get them?
8 You need authorizations, prior
9 authorizations. Limit the quantities. Right?
10 I know the education with the doctors have
11 been tremendous, because you could tell how they're
12 writing now; that it's helping and it's working.
13 But I think that that's a tremendous thing,
14 that if we put into -- we can put into law, or
15 however you want to do it, but limit the quantities.
16 Have the patient come back in two weeks to get it
17 again if they're a cancer patient or a hospice, or,
18 depending on the diagnosis, obviously.
19 But if -- limit the quantities that are in --
20 on people's shelves in their house.
21 So, I mean -- again, so, Suboxone, right,
22 some of the patients that have come to us, I've
23 known them for many years, being on Staten Island,
24 and I speak to a lot of them.
25 And, you know, the ones that I know
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1 personally, from interacting with them, they -- the
2 Suboxone is a tremendous help.
3 So, you know, some patients it helps, some
4 patients it doesn't.
5 But, from the ones that I've spoken to, it
6 definitely relieves them from the -- from this --
7 from this epidemic.
8 So, I appreciate it, again, and thank you
9 all.
10 [Applause.]
11 ASSEMBLYMAN CUSICK: Of course, I just want
12 to thank you, too.
13 With the I-STOP, we depended a lot on the
14 pharmacists and the pharmacies, in drafting up the
15 legislation.
16 But I just wanted to mention one thing that
17 you had brought up: That we as legislators have
18 brought up to the Staten Island District Attorney,
19 and actually had an announcement, and we put in a
20 request to the New York State Department of Health
21 to have a linkage.
22 We can link our system to New Jersey, to
23 Pennsylvania, to other states. There just needs to
24 be a consent of each state to do that.
25 So, I just want you to know that we have, the
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1 legislators up here, and the District Attorney here
2 in Staten Island, have put in that request to the
3 New York State Department of Health to do that.
4 SENATOR BOYLE: Thank you, Mike.
5 I would like thank everyone for coming today:
6 To the panelists, to the audience, we had a
7 great exchange of ideas;
8 Mr. Hunt, the Crupis, and James, thank you
9 for sharing your story;
10 And to my colleagues, Senator Lanza,
11 Senator Savino, and Assemblyman Cusick.
12 We're going to take what you gave us today,
13 and it's going to be part of upcoming legislation.
14 That, I can promise you.
15 We're going to be -- oh, yeah.
16 We have some information on the back -- on
17 the outside, if you want to take it on your way out.
18 And, remember to try and get trained for
19 Narcan, if you have not done so already.
20 I can tell you that, this is a -- obviously,
21 a non-partisan issue. We have, members of each
22 party here, and each house of the State Legislature.
23 We are here to end this heroin epidemic, and
24 with the ideas and information you gave us today,
25 the passion that you expressed.
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1 And this was, I would say, out of the nine
2 forums I've been to, this was the most passionate;
3 and I thank you.
4 And I understand that Staten Island is the
5 epicenter of this epidemic, and this is where we're
6 going to begin the fight, and we're going to win it,
7 very soon, with new legislation.
8 Thank you so much.
9 [Applause.]
10
11 (Whereupon, at approximately 3:51 p.m.,
12 the forum held before the New York State Joint
13 Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction
14 concluded, and adjourned.)
15 ---oOo---
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