From the Harford County Health Department:
Harford County received $170,313 in an effort to reduce overdose deaths as part of the larger effort of the Maryland’s Opioid Operational Command Center (OOCC).
The OOCC was established in March of this year and modeled after an incident command center that serves as the coordinating entity between Maryland Department of Health, Maryland Emergency Management Agency, and the Governor’s Office of Crime Control & Prevention. In July, more than $22 million was designated to fight the heroin and opioid epidemic. Eighty percent went to Maryland’s 24 local jurisdictions and service providers to fund prevention, enforcement, and treatment efforts throughout the state.
In Harford County, an OOCC Senior Policy Group, chaired by the Interim Health Officer, Dr. Russell Moy, and col-ed by Harford County’s Director of Emergency Management, Edward Hopkins, was developed comprising of County agencies including the Health Department, Emergency Management, the Sheriff’s Office, State’s Attorney’s Office, Community Services, Harford County Public Schools, University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health, and volunteer fire and first responders. The group will designate $140,000 to create a 24/7 telephone line for central intake, navigation, and recovery. The telephone line will be staffed by peer recovery specialists, with support from healthcare professionals throughout the County, including Addiction Connections Resources (ACR).
Interim Health Officer, Dr. Russell Moy, explains, “This team will serve as a well-publicized, easy-to-reach, central access point committed to assuring on-demand comprehensive screenings, assistance with navigation through the treatment system and follow-up with recovery support care coordination. This project is critical for those who have substance use disorders in Harford County. With the support and assistance from ACR, this plan will improve people’s first point of contact with the healthcare system by enhancing early identification and intervention for those with substance use disorders.”
The remainder of the money will go towards providing first responders an adequate supply of Naloxone, a drug used to reverse the effects of an overdose.
Director of Emergency Services, Edward Hopkins, says “Unfortunately, Harford County law enforcement and other agencies have taken on the role of first responders and identifiers for overdoses and cardiac arrests associated with heroin overdoses. This is exactly why it’s imperative that our first responders are equipped with Naloxone. Our goal is to reduce overdose deaths by 20% and we hope this is an effort in the right direction.”
“We welcome this additional funding from Governor Hogan’s Opioid Operational Command Center to help Harford County save lives and fight this unprecedented wave of opioid addiction affecting our families and communities,” County Executive Barry Glassman said.
For more information about this topic, please visit the health department’s website at www.harfordcountyhealth.com
The “heroin crisis” has turned into a nice money maker, amirite? Like every other medical problem, turn it into profits. I’d say let’s all drink to good health but unfortunately if people stopped overdosing, more people would be out of a job.
More jobs for PR/Medical/Business people getting paid to give people a slide show presentation of shit you already know. They don’t know how to fix the heroin crisis, and probably never will.
The ramped up production to a very profitable end for those who make that adrenaline shot device that first responders use to reverse the overdose.
Meanwhile Cops and EMS people are probably getting burned out of the job of the same people overdosing weekly.
We as a country spent billions bringing back the poppy fields of Afghanistan that the Taliban all but obliterated. Remember the good old days when heroin was expensive and hard to find. Thank you George Bush and Chicken Dick Cheney.
What’s even more hilarious is going to be medical marijuana in this state, particularly the grow sites.
Of course these places are going to need more than a 12 foot high fence with Barb wire and locked doors.
Right now I’m pretty sure it’s illegal Federal and State law to have a firearm that close to marijuana.
I’ve been waiting for our state legislator to exempt firearms guarding medical marijuana because we all know how much money this new racket is going to be, if the rollout process isn’t an epic hilarious fail.
You are clearly ill-informed. A heroin addict isn’t going to be breaking down fences to get some weed. That isn’t their addiction and the marijuana high is not what their body craves and needs. Medical weed isn’t going to increase the opioid crisis. If anything it may help in that doctors can supply patients with something besides narcotic pain medicines, which all too often are the start of addictions.
Nah, I’m not ill informed. My comment was not specifically about heroin addicts that commit a burglary, or armed robbery (during business hours) of a Medical Marijuana facility.
It was a generalized comment, off-topic, that felt I like adding anyway. Why? Because I felt like it.
Furthermore, there are PLENTY of “Heroin addicts” that commit a multitude of violent crime as well as non-Heroin heroin addicts that commit the same violent crimes. Maybe whoever you know that’s addicted to a substance is has no past, or current criminal activity besides the purchase and use of unlawful drugs.
Good luck!
If demand goes away supply will dwindle. Eliminate the user and the supplier goes out of business.
You apparently had the same supply and demand teacher as Rick Perry.
“Green thumb”
You know so much. Tell us, again.
Like we haven’t already heard that same bullshit umpteenth time.
What part of what I said is BS? It is a fact that the over prescription opioids is one of the factors that has led to the current crisis.
Please refute…
Bullshit, as in, the same rhetoric over and over. We’re all well aware that prescription medication abuse is one of the little pictures why people are on heroin.
We’re past the “how we got here.” Nobody cares.
Little pictures? The heroin problem is directly linked to the over prescribing of opiods.
Yes, little picture onto a bigger picture. There are many (opinions, including mine) as to what the rest of these little pictures are.
I outlined another in my comment below.
Blue – You can’t be serious. The prescription drugs are how the majority of “normal” people are first exposed to opioids. Some can handle it, and some, for what ever reason, it leads them down a path of addiction. Ultimately, IV heroin becomes the cheapest and best way to get their needs met. When the doctor stops prescribing, and pill shopping no longer works, purchasing pills illegally becomes very expensive, very fast. Heroin is the perfect alternative.
I never said you were wrong besides typing up the same rhetoric.
Sounds like you got a great plan to stop the addiction, tell it again so I know.
I think our “heroin crisis” has a lot to do with poor parenting, something that is never mentioned. A lot of people’s kids in “well off” lifestyles are getting hooked on the dope.
I found it pretty easy to go through life without being interested in unlawful drugs based on my integrity/background growing up.
I’d personally give a “pass” to minimal marijuana experimentation, it’s pretty rare for someone not to have at least tried it once. I have never smoked marijuana, so I’m included in my self proclaimed rare category.
who remembers the President saying this 2 months ago then doing nothing.
“The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I’m saying officially, right now, it is an emergency,” the president said from Bedminster. “It’s a national emergency. We’re going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis.”
Who remembers a series of devastating weather events that impacted thousands of people around the same time? Think priorities needed to shift a bit?
The same people who deal with weather events also were the ones going to spend time and effort on the opiod crisis?
Are you really that dumb?
So, let’s put some thought into your statement:
Who would fight the opiod epidemic?
-Law Enforcement
-Military
-Emergency Services personnel
Who were the people dispatched to handle the catastrophic weather events that affected thousands of Americans?
-Law Enforcement
-Military
-Emergency Services personnel
What does it take to fight said opiod epidemic?
-Appropriated funds, simply because it probably was not “planned” within whatever sort of budget they have
What does it take to help thousands of Americans who were affected by disastrous weather events?
-Appropriated funds. Some funding was allocated for events such as a weather disaster, however based on the totality, funds were appropriated from other sources.
Who did you expect were going to deal with the opiod issue?
-Congress? LOL – “Are you really that dumb?”
-Local government? LOL – “Are you really that dumb?”
Wait, I know…
-Teachers! LOL – “Are you really that dumb?”
No, it’s really it this time:
-Parents of the kids slinging this stuff on the streets! Yes! Yes! That’s it! LOL – “Are you really that dumb?”
-Doctors losing money because of Obamacare! LOL – “Are you really that dumb?”
-Hospitals, who are running severe shortages because of Obamacare! LOL – “Are you really that dumb?”
Who then, oh wise one of the Keyboard Warrior Nation?