Community members, school districts, local police enforcement officials, drug and alcohol professionals and politicians are working together to stop the growing problem of drugs, gangs and crime in Pennsylvania.

Earlier this month, law enforcement, community members and school district officials came together in Topton after the death of three young adults who died from heroin overdoses. They hope to create action groups, working with the school district and local law enforcement for the safety of the students and to get heroin off the streets.

Law enforcement officials say there is an increase of deaths in Pennsylvania due to the sale of bad batches of heroin.

The Pennsylvania Newspaper Association recently hosted a webinar for newspaper professionals regarding combating street drugs which included State Sen. John Rafferty, R-44th, Montgomery County, State Sen. John Yudichak, D-14th, Luzerne and Carbon counties and drug and alcohol expert Deborah Beck, M.S.W., in the discussion.

Topics included street crime, gangs and burglaries, all which often can be traced back to drug use.

The senators said in 2011, the United States Department of Justice did a threat assessment on northeast Pennsylvania and confirmed the region was becoming a distribution center for gangs, especially along the Interstate 80 and 81 corridors, and also used to drive heroin into a 10 to 15 county region.

Realizing some of the smaller communities do not have the resources, a mobile street crime unit was developed – $2.5 million was placed in the Pennsylvania budget to create the unit under the attorney general.

The first deployment was in the greater Hazleton area; 120 arrests of drug dealers were made from seven different counties.

This deployment took 35,000 packets of heroin off the streets in Hazelton, a town with only 33,000 residents.

Because there are only 38 officers in Hazleton, 16 different local, state and federal agencies, including the National Guard, Drug Enforcement Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigations, state police, local police and the district attorney pooled their resources to make sure local intelligence and all agencies were on the same page.

Working together.

Rafferty said a law enforcement caucus is being formed in accordance with Act 200-2012, an anti-gang bill which originated in Chester County.

Penalties exist for those who recruit and keep members in gangs. The act also makes it an offense to forcibly recruit a juvenile into a gang.

Yudichak said a 13-year-old girl was brutally beaten outside of an elementary school in Hazleton as part of an initiation recruitment ceremony.

"Operation Gang Up" is a bipartisan initiative to engage community members to tackle violent street crime.

Yudichak said crime driven by drug trade has changed dramatically in his district, so much so they are in the top 10 most violent counties in Pennsylvania, mostly driven by drug trade and criminal gangs.

Yudichak and Rafferty said they believe this counter-insurgency unit to be the first of its kind in Pennsylvania and the country. The unit can be deployed into a region on a covert operation and disrupt and dismantle crime gang and drug traffic organizations and, according to the senators, more good things are to come.

Beck, a drug and alcohol consultant with over 30 years of clinical, policy and legislative experience working in the alcohol and drug treatment and prevention field, said one in four families has an untreated family member who is addicted to drugs. She said the drugs on the street are quickly addictive – "quicker, sicker" drugs.

"We really need to get these drugs off the street," Beck said. She said users "don't play very long before they end up in deep trouble, emergency rooms or end up breaking into a pharmacy or their grandmother's house to continue their addiction. Without treatment, these problems will continue."

Local law enforcement officials say heroin is usually injected into the body. After a while, one bag isn't enough for the feeling of euphoria, they need two bags, then three, then four.

Beck said fewer are being treated today than five years ago and incarcerations go up when the treatments go down.

Statistics, according to Beck, show most untreated addicts are first alcoholics. They next move to prescription drugs and then street drugs.

She said she has never met a volunteer treatment addict.

"Forced treatment absolutely works," Beck said. "It has saved the lives of many people."

Beck said strong Medicaid law requires long-term residential rehabilitation must be paid by Medicaid and the children's health insurance act needs to be enforced to catch the kids.

For parents, signs of heroin use include behavioral changes, hyperactivity followed by fatigue, disorientation, irresponsibility at work or school, lying, wearing of long shirts and pants even in warm weather, increased sleeping, slurred speech, track marks on arms or legs, weight loss, a constant runny nose or scabs or bruises due to picking of the skin.

An overdose of heroin slows a person's heart rate and, when slowed too much, the person stops breathing and the heart stops. The user can only be revived by an injection of Nalozone, also known as Narcan, administered by a paramedic or hospital personnel.

Time is of the essence in administering this injection.

If you are a parent, friend or community member observing a person showing these symptoms, call 911 immediately to get help.

In the meantime, thank you to the legislators, drug and alcohol professionals and community members who continue to work toward stopping the drugs from getting to our children, helping to get treatment for those who need it and enforcing the laws designed to help protect those most vulnerable members of our communities.

Debbie Galbraith

editor

East Penn Press

Salisbury Press