4 -Edition 261 The Boca Raton Tribune EDITORIALS & LETTERS East/West Boca Raton, FL
The Boca Raton Tribune Founded January 15, 2010
DOUGLAS HEIZER, Publisher
Editorial C. RON ALLEN PEDRO HEIZER
Our Writers/Reporters and Columnists Charlotte Beasley
SKIP SHEFFIELD
Joshua Carlson
SYNESIO LYRA
Veronica Haggar
Online Edition PEDRO HEIZER Falvia Proenca
Business DOUGLAS HEIZER DINI HEIZER
EDITORIAL By C. Ron Allen
Police Hope to Save Lives with Antidote to Overdose We are only 60 days into the year and already fire-rescue emergency medical technicians in Delray Beach have given 10 overdose victims a second chance to live. The first responders have been carrying a drug called naloxone — known commonly by its trade name, Narcan after they saw a very large uptick of heroin overdoses. The drug can reverse a heroin overdose instantly. Hailed as the recovering capital of America, Delray Beach is the epicenter in South Florida. Addiction to heroin and to prescription opioids has become so common in the city, which has more than 200 licensed recovery programs and more than 100 “sober homes.” Last year alone there were 26 heroin overdoses in Delray Beach and there was a time when rescue personnel were using the medicine so often, they ran out of supply. (In the first two weeks of 2014, police seized more heroin than in the past 10 years combined.) The number of overdose cases continues to
soar, so much that in an effort to save lives, police officers on Tuesday began hauling the life-saving antidote around along with all the accoutrements they currently tote. The drug comes in a liquid vial, but is delivered into the nose as a fine mist through an atomizer. Should someone who is unconscious, blue and not breathing from an overdose of heroin or opioid painkillers be given an injection or nasal spray of naloxone, it is almost guaranteed that he or she will be sitting up and talking in one to three minutes. Fire-Rescue personnel trained the supervisors who are the custodians of the drug for their shifts. Once administered to addicts who have overdosed, the medicine prevents the disastrous effects of opioids, most notably respiratory failure, and gives emergency responders, family members or friends, a 30- to 90-minute window to get the victim to the hospital for more advanced care. Before paramedics began administering naloxone, overdose victims often died of
those effects while others looked on helplessly. Police Chief Jeffrey Goldman said their mission is to provide public safety, and naloxone is another tool to help them do that. No officer wants to notify a family that a loved one may have died from a heroin overdose, and they have done that 10 times to date this year, he said. As opiate overdoses have soared nationwide, law enforcement agencies all over the country are beginning to train their officers on how to use naloxone and provide them with kits. Police are often the first to arrive at the scene, and experts say those early minutes can be the key to saving a life. The New York City Police Department is doing this on Staten Island, where the death rate from opioid overdose is roughly four times that of other boroughs. I applaud Chief Goldman and all those who responsible for this decision because instead of saying, ‘It is not really part of our job,’ they have taken another approach and are treating drug addiction as a disease.
Statistics show that deaths from overdose of heroin and prescription opioids more than tripled nationally between 2000 and 2010. Overdose is now the leading cause of injury-related death, surpassing auto crashes. It kills twice as many people in the United States each year as AIDS. I recall the time when we thought of heroin as an inner-city drug. That is no longer the case. Today, it is a middle-class drug. Just recently the operator of one of our local recovery centers told me that the number of OD cases because of heroin brought to his doorsteps has skyrocketed as many as 10 times. Let’s face it folks, just like the homeless population, the latest problem is here to stay. What are we going to do about it? Medical professionals have been using naloxone, like defibrillators, for years. So, like defibrillators, it may be a good idea to have the resuscitation sprays in public places throughout the city. C. Ron Allen can be reached at crallen@DelrayBeachTribune.com or 561-665-0151.
POSITIVE LIVING By Dr. Synesio Lyra, Jr.
Always Be On The Lookout! If you attempt to go anywhere with your eyes closed, you’ll most certainly stumble somewhere and fall, besides other possible disasters your lack of caution can cause. The same is equally true in our daily living in the world. It’s important that we always be on the lookout! Live all your days with awareness of what is in front of you, what you’ve left behind, whatever surrounds you, and carve a safe path to lead you to where you need to be, so as to get there efficiently, doing much good while you’re en route as well as at your place of arrival. The idea of always being on the lookout does not denote spy tactics. It’s also not
to intrude or meddle into somebody else’s territory. The purpose should never be to force your way into somebody or something where you might not belong, or even be welcome! I once read a significant challenge about two houses. One was filled with mirrors around all its walls; the other contained a great number of windows all over. The question was: What kind of house would you prefer to inhabit – the one filled with mirrors, where you would only look at yourself all the time, or a house with many windows, out of which you could contemplate the world, your surroundings, and the needs you could detect from that vantage
point of viewing? When I recommend to myself and my readers always to be on the lookout, my intent is precisely to urge us all to be sensitive to much that surrounds us, particularly the needs that expect from us possible solutions we may be able to provide. The world requires more concerned people, more observant individuals, more persons in search of fresh opportunities to do good for the benefit of others. Everywhere countless fellow humans lack encouragement, both to proceed in the route where they find themselves, as well as to find new trajectories in life wherein challenges will be found through which needs may be met,
seeds may be sown, and rich harvests may also be gathered. Everybody is uniquely equipped with ideas and skills which, if transformed into positive action, can contribute significantly to improve other lives and, in the process, make this world a better place. Let us never minimize what we already have; let us simply find concrete ways of doing what we can, with what we already possess, for the benefit of others who need our personal deeds and contributions! Persons prepared to keep their eyes widely open, shall never miss new opportunities anywhere, to bless other lives in significant ways!
Dr. Synesio Lyra, Jr. is a Florida resident who, for many years, was a professor at the post-graduate level. He is a writer, a sought-after conference speaker, a man who lived in five continents of the world, having received his education in four of them. When he resided in southern California, he wrote a weekly column for the daily “Anaheim Bulletin,” which was carried for about six years, until he moved to south Florida.
March 4 - 17, 2016
www.bocaratontribune.com