Cortland Standard .net

By AMY GERNON
Staff Reporter
agernon@cortlandstandard.net
Due to the high rate of prescription drug and heroin abuse in Cortland County, a state grant was recently awarded to a local coalition to help combat opiate and drug abuse among 12- to 25-year-olds in the county.
The Cortland Area Communities that Care Coalition has received a $627,300 grant from the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services to reduce prescription drug, opiate and heroin abuse that occurs within that population.
The Partnership for Success grant by OASAS was awarded to 10 counties throughout the state, including Cortland, that demonstrate a growing need to address drug abuse. Grantees are also required to have community coalitions with the capacity to successfully implement the activities funded through the grant.
Prescription drug misuse is a growing problem in Cortland County, which has the highest rate of heroin exposure per 50,000 people of any county in the state, according to Matt Whitman, CACTC’s program manager. The Upstate New York Poison Center received 10 calls relating to heroin exposure from health care institutions within the county per 50,000 people between January and October of 2014.
By comparison, Onondaga County reported nine incidents of heroin exposure per 50,000 people, Monroe County reported two cases per 50,000 people and Oneida reported three per 50,000 people.
“It’s (drug abuse) definitely a serious issue that impacts the older demographic, and we want to prevent it in the 18- to 25-population as well,” Whitman said.
Collaboration planned
Whitman said the first step to be taken by CACTC, whose mission is to prevent or reduce adolescent drug use, will be to collaborate with local partners, including law enforcement, school districts and local government agencies, to assess the needs of the community. The goal of the grant is to build new drug prevention programs and enhanceexisting programs.
Whitman said that the grant will support programming and strategies implemented by the community partners of CACTC. For example, he cited a surveying program to determine drug use among middle and high schoolstudents.
Cortland Prevention Resources, a division of Family Counseling Services that is the primary prevention provider in the county, is one of CACTC’s partners that was instrumental in writing the successful grant application, according to Kimberly McRae Friedman, director of the Cortland Prevention Resources.
“As soon as we figure out our role, we will begin rolling out programming and services accordingly,” McRae Friedman said, adding that she is still working closely with CACTC to identify the needs of the community.
Whitman said that the strategic planning phase will take about six months. McRae Friedman said the startups of the programs depend on what the partners determine local needs to be. There are already plans, however, to expand a survey program that is conducted among middle and high school students throughout the county, according to Whitman.
Prescription meds addressed
Another program that might be a focus for expansion is Cortland Prevention Center’s prescription medication collection program that is conducted through a partnership with CACTC and the sheriff’s department. McRae Friedman said that the program, which has been held semiannually for the past six years, has collected more than 10,000 pounds of prescription drugs. Four medical collection kiosks have also been stationed in different locations within the county, including the sheriff’s department, the city police department, the Homer Police Department and at SUNY Cortland. McRae Friedman said that although the kiosks have only been in place for a few months, already 150 pounds of prescription medication has been collected.
McRae Friedman said that it was also possible that the Narcan training program may be expanded as well. Narcan is a drug used to counteract the effects of opiates and is effective in preventing fatal overdoses.
“Narcan allows a potential opportunity to get into treatment if the patient’s life is successfully saved,” McRae Friedman said.
CACTC previously organized surveys of sixth-, eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders throughout the county’s schools. With the grant, these surveys will be expanded for students in seventh through 12th grades, and a survey will also be conducted among the 18- to 25-year-old population.
Whitman said that these surveys mainly focused on alcohol, tobacco and marijuana use, but the scope of the surveys will broaden to include questions about prescription drugs and heroin use among the teen and the young adult population.
CACTC was also previously awarded two five-year Drug Free Communities grants and the STOP Act grant, which also funded programs to reduce drug use and underage drinking in the county. The most recent Drug Free Communities grant awarded to CACTC will expire Sept. 30. The STOP Act grant will expire in September 2016.
In addition to working to reduce drug abuse, CACTC also works to reduce teen pregnancy, delinquency, school dropout rates and teen violence in Cort-land County.