By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
An increase in Princeton in heroin use and overdoses is part of a national and statewide trend, primarily among adults in their 20s who are abusing a drug that has crept into the suburbs with devastating consequences, municipal officials said this week.
Those officials said that while Princeton is nowhere near experiencing the problems of big cities, there is an increase. So far in 2015, there have been five heroin overdoses and one person died of an overdose, according to figures that police Chief Nicholas K. Sutter released Tuesday.
“It’s certainly something we’re concerned with,” municipal health officer Jeffrey C. Grosser said Wednesday.
In response, all Princeton police have available in their vehicles the drug Narcan, an antidote used to save the life of someone in the throes of an overdose. The drug counteracts the opiate effects of heroin, Chief Sutter said.
On the enforcement end, police said that this year, they had made five arrests for heroin possession and one for distribution. Chief Sutter said his department gets daily intelligence updates on the brands of heroin out there — information the department can use to compare to the drugs that police are taking off the street.
Councilman Lance Liverman said Tuesday that locking up drug users does not get them the help they need, and believes that drug use on its own should not be an arrestable offense. He said authorities should focus enforcement on arresting drug dealers.
“For us to throw you in prison without help, what is that doing for us?” he said. “That doesn’t help anybody.”
Chief Sutter noted that due to state legislation, the five people who overdosed on heroin were not arrested, even though they had possessed the drug.
“The five arrests were separate from the overdoses,” he said.
Gary DeBlasio, executive director of Corner House and the municipal director of health, youth and community services, said Tuesday that heroin abuse has reached “epidemic proportions” in New Jersey. In reports issued by separate agencies, the state said 781 people died of heroin overdoses and that 24,059 people were admitted to substance abuse treatment for heroin, all last year.
Mr. DeBlasio said heroin has become an “acceptable suburb drug” that is a cheaper alternative to prescription painkillers. He said someone might obtain pain medication — legitimately or not — get addicted to it and then turn to heroin, which can sell for $10 a bag or even less.
He added that New Jersey is known to have the purest form of heroin available on the street, as the state is sandwiched between Philadelphia and New York and located along the drug corridor of I-95 that acts as a pipeline from Florida up the East Coast.
Mr. DeBlasio said that of the hundreds of addiction cases his agency treats, heroin ranks as the third most popular drug of choice, preceded by alcohol and marijuana.
“In the last two years, it jumped past cocaine,” he said.
He said all the members of his department and two other municipal agencies recently were trained on how to administer Narcan. He said he would like to expand the training to include members of the community, including clients and family members of Corner House, the community counseling center providing prevention, education and treatment programs for young people .
As part of an awareness campaign, the town is planning to have an education forum on heroin in the first part of next year, Mr. DeBlasio said. Details still need to be worked out, but Corner House, the health department and the police department will be jointly involved.
Mr. Liverman said that for drug users who get treatment, the majority of them turn out to be productive members of society.
“We need more education in regard to heroin use in our area,” Mr. Liverman said. “We have to be mindful and not put our heads in the sand, and work with people to get them help.”
