From Harford County government:
Children who have lost a loved one to heroin are speaking out in a series of gripping public service announcements in Harford County movie theaters this summer. Produced by the administration of County Executive Barry Glassman, the first of three 30-second PSAs debuted on June 17 in a campaign that will run through September. The PSAs are the administration’s newest effort to raise awareness about the national heroin epidemic affecting Harford County. All together these emotionally powerful messages will be seen by an estimated 131,000 movie-goers.
Bravely stepping forward in the first PSA are 12-year-old Jade Buddenbohn from Fallston and Alyana Beck, age 15 from Street, who lost their cousin to an overdose in December 2015. Subsequent PSAs will feature 8-year-old Ava Buddenbohn of Fallston; Mara Finnegan, age 10 of Forest Hill; Patrick Beck, age 18 of Street; Alaina Rives, age 15 of Street, and Lexi Kuzma, age 16 of Bel Air.
The PSA’s are intended to help bridge the “summer gap” in countywide anti-drug messaging.
“Harford County Public Schools and Harford County government’s prevention specialists do an excellent job reaching parents and students throughout the school year, but it is more difficult to reach families during busy summer months,” said Amber Shrodes, director of the Harford County Department of Community Services. “We want to reach kids in different ways throughout the year to ensure the message continues to be top-of-mind.”
The PSAs were produced in a peer-to-peer format, which is recommended by experts in the field of juvenile drug prevention and by Maryland Governor Hogan’s Heroin Task Force.
“These are the types of stories that are resonating with our youth,” said Wendy Messner, founder and president of Rage Against Addiction Inc., a local nonprofit dedicated to connecting addicts and their families with recovery resources.
Messner also helped the Dept. of Community Services’ Office of Drug Control Policy identify youth for the PSAs. “I am so proud of all of the PSA participants,” she said. “I applaud their courage to share these deeply painful accounts. It is not in vain. This is what works. These messages keep kids from experimenting with drugs.”
The Harford County Department of Community Services hopes to capture the attention of pre-teens to young adults with the peer-to-peer campaign, but there is a message here for parents too.
“Summer vacation should not be a vacation from talking to your kids about heroin,” said County Executive Barry Glassman. “We need to keep these conversations going because nothing is more powerful than parents talking to their kids about drugs.”
The first PSA can be viewed online at www.harfordcountymd.gov/services/drugcontrol and on the Harford County Office on Drug Control Policy Facebook page.
I doubt drug use will ever get better in this county.
It’s a war that just can’t be ever won, and will never be won.
I would love it if we found a way around HIPAA to allow kids to go to local hospitals into the ICU and see what a person looks like after an OD in the hospital. To see what it looks like for a person with all the machines and tubes. All the nurses and staff taking care of them, the stuff the medical peope do to the patient and the distraught families. Or the cold bodies in the morgue.
Seriously Michelle? Do you show your kids a bariatric bypass surgery or diseased heart every time the kids want McDonalds? There are better ways to educate without psychologically harming children.
Reality – with the way that heroin abuse is rampant in young people, it really isn’t a bad idea for at risk teens. Scaring the shit out of them will make more of an lasting impression than what we try to do now. You know why you never see an old heroin junkie? Because they all die.
My sister has been a heroin addict since 1993. She was in a medical induced coma for 28 days due to pneumonia. She woke up and was completely heroin, cigarette, methadone and everything free from her body and mind. She was so happy and we could see the light in eyes and joy in her voice. For the next 2 weeks she remained in the icu while the doctors tried everything to help her heal completely. Blood transfusions, dialysis and everything they could do. The doctors finally decided after 6 weeks that her body was still suffering from withdraw and in order for her to recover from the pneumonia they would have to put her on a small amount of methadone. My sister was heartbroken and devastated. One year later my sister is where she was prior to the pneumonia. It is an ugly battle but we will never give up hope, but we must choice to leave your life to avoid being a enabler ?
With all honesty, I say my heart bleeds for Heather and every person who has watched a loved one’s descent into the hell of drug addiction. Michelle makes a very important point when she talks about showing the inevitable outcome of drug addiction. Yes, it is hard to watch, but it is even harder to live through.
The time to reach young people is before the social event where drugs are available, and peer pressure makes it seem so easy to just “try” one hit. They spin the wheel and when the pointer stops…
These shorts are a beginning and I applaud the County Commissioner’s decision to let the people who have lived with the tragedy of a loved one who is on the “path” tell how awful it is to watch someone destroy themselves with a drug that was never meant to be recreational.
Start giving consequences, beginning in high school, and this nonsense will stop. Its everybody is entitled today, instant gratification, and no consequences.
No one has a clue how to fight the addiction/mental health. It will never be solved. The problem it’s not specific to an area, it’s anyone and everyone.
Sorry, that’s the reality. Some people get clean and stay clean but the amount of people opposite is far greater and rising faster than anyone knows what to do.
With decriminalized marijuana in Maryland and “legal” in the very near future, count on our Maryland elected people to “decriminalize” all other CDS in some personal use amount.
This is so tragic. I’m just wondering what I has changed since I was that age. Way back in the 70’s and 80’s when I was in my “youth,” me and my high school and college friends did lots of crazy things – we were not angels by any means. But heroin is something we NEVER touched. If someone had even suggested it to us, if we didn’t beat his/her arse first, we certainly would have immediately disassociated ourselves with them. I ask sincerely, does anybody know what is different now to cause such an epidemic?
Again, no one knows. That’s the final answer.
I ask sincerely, does anybody know what is different now to cause such an epidemic?
@Harford Resident
It’s cheap, it’s readily available, it hooks you quick and, among the youth today it is acceptable because, if you get hooked, it is not really your fault, you are a victim and not really the responsible person in this action, it’s the bad person who sold or gave you the drug.
Ask yourself honestly since you and your friends were no angles, why would you never touch heroin? What existed in your youth that prevented you trying heroin? Even though you were no angle, didn’t you have some level of responsibility for your own actions that kept you away from heroin?
We dont have the technological understanding to develop something to reverse all aspects of addiction for every single person.
Basically we (concerned citizens) just get constantly told information we already know again, and again.
The only thing remarkable I’ve see is that Law Enforcement Officers and EMTs have NARCAN or whatever other trademark name to reverse the effect of an OD at the time of incident and save a life. It doesn’t do shit for the person after the fact
I think it is simply availability combined with human nature, or at least for some humans.
Feeling invincible is a facet of the young mind. Combine that with an individual that is predisposed and/or adventuresome enough to “try anything” (and there will always be a certain percentage of the population with such a disposition). Add heroin to the short list of things easily available to be sampled, and you have a perfect recipe for what we’re seeing not just in Harford County, but in many places across the country.
When I was growing up, booze and weed was pretty much the only thing you could easily find. A little later, coke became more accessible. I know a lot of people who tried them. I have no doubt that if heroin was available, some of them would have tried that too, and would have ended up hooked.
I completely lacked that invincible feeling, and always feared trying anything for fear that I would become hooked. I wish more kids had the benefit of that brand of paranoia.
Clean
How did you develop your paranoia?
I developed mine by research into the recreational drugs available to me. I even did a term paper on recreational drugs. What I learned scared the bejeesus out of me. Trying alcohol and pot made me see that the “morning after” was not worth the night before.
A few things, really. A family member had a drinking problem when I was young, and I saw the effect of too much alcohol. So there was no mystery or fascination about it when the opportunities to consume presented themselves to me.
Aside of that, I always had a pretty obsessive personality, so I kind of instinctively felt that drugs and my personality would be extremely bad playmates! I’m a musician, and I feel experiences of the senses with a lot of intensity. So I was also afraid of drugs from the standpoint that I would probably enjoy them way to much and would be easily addicted. Kind of strange to have those kinds of feelingd at such a young age, but that was me.
To that end, I never drank until legal age (still rarely do), and never taken or tried any illegal drug.
Harford Resident
One of the things that is different now is that the currently available heroin can be snorted or smoked. It is strong enough that you do not have to inject it to get high. Taking the onus of the needle away makes it a little more user friendly.
“Ask yourself honestly since you and your friends were no angles, why would you never touch heroin? What existed in your youth that prevented you trying heroin?”
All I can say is that we all had these happy middle class family lives, and none of us sought some “medicated” alternative to escape problems. No one lived in a big house or had lots of material possessions, and no one’s parents were divorced, or were depressed or whatever. Life was simple and happy. Maybe that’s the reason?
” completely lacked that invincible feeling, and always feared trying anything for fear that I would become hooked. I wish more kids had the benefit of that brand of paranoia.”
I guess that was part of my thinking as well. Even today, I rarely drink alcohol, because I always want to be in control of every aspect of my life: family, work, financial, etc. I find no pleasure in getting “out of control” to have a good time. Hanging out with the family, with a good cup of coffee and good converstaion is really all I need to enjoy life.