Community Event in Harford County Targets Addiction Recovery

HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. - June 11, 2018 - PRLog -- The Harford County community discussed how to combat the opioid epidemic while promoting the value of addiction recovery during an event in Abington, Maryland.

Two discussion panels were hosted by the Mountain Christian Church in Abington with four different Rotary clubs in southern Harford, Aberdeen, Bel Air, and Havre de Grace.

Approximately 80 people attended the discussion. The moderator of the discussion panels and a member of the Havre de Grace Rotary, Don Mathis stated that was significantly less than the audience of similar events held in the area in the past.

For several years, the local community has been warned about the dangers of opioids by the Harford County Health Department, which launched an Opioid Prevention and Response Program in 2013.

The initiative looked to assess and develop strategies to prevent opioid abuse and to coordinate addiction recovery services. The program has been striving to reduce the number of local overdose deaths by at least 10 percent.

But during the recent event, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler stated that drug overdose deaths increased 12 percent since last year in the county.

There were more than 135 overdoses in Harford County this year but less than 40 were fatal.

Members of the Harford County Sheriff's Office explained that the number of drug overdoses that were not deadly decreased more than 13 percent in the county. The reduction may be attributed to the fact that the Harford County Health Department implemented a Naloxone Certification, which allows county residents to get certified to help individuals who may be experiencing opioid overdoses.

Another accomplishment that can likely be attributed to the implementation of these measures is that since 2015 there were less than 100 opioid-related deaths in Harford County.

The audience could spot a mobile unit, the Heroin Overdose Prevention Effort (H.O.P.E.) House trailer parked outside of the event.

The vehicle, designed to look like an adolescent's bedroom, was launched by the Harford County Sheriff's Office to fight the opioid epidemic in September and has since been used promote public awareness and teach local adults how to identify signs of substance abuse in their homes.

https://www.drugaddictionnow.com/2018/06/11/addiction-rec...