Kaine Weighs In On Area’s Addiction Problem
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said he’s impressed with area law enforcement agencies’ approach to the heroin epidemic.
During a visit to the city Monday afternoon, Kaine attended a roundtable discussion on the heroin/prescription opioid problem with representatives from the Northwest Virginia Regional Drug Task Force, Valley Health, area schools, concerned community members and Winchester Police Chief Kevin Sanzenbacher, at the Timbrook Public Safety Center, 231 E. Piccadilly St.
About two dozen people attended the forum.
In recent years, Kaine said that law enforcement agencies have questioned the practice of simply incarcerating people, who use drugs.
“I think [your] law enforcement folks have been some of our most effective advocates now,” he said.
“If you were fighting any other war for 40 years, I think you would be looking for some other strategies,” Sanzenbacher responded.
The chief said police had recognized the heroin problem, which last year claimed 33 lives in the task force’s region — Winchester, and Frederick, Clarke, Shenandoah, Warren and Page counties.
Twenty-two heroin or opioid deaths have been reported so far this year, said city police spokeswoman Lauren Cummings, who at the start of 2016 will become executive director of the Northern Shenandoah Valley Substance Abuse Coalition.
“We recognized that it was really far more than a law enforcement issue,” Sanzenbacher said. “We just couldn’t arrest our way out of this situation.”
The prevalence of the problem is playing out in family court, Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judge Beth Kellas Burton said.
“Our foster care populations in the city and county have doubled and even tripled over time,” she said.
People are committing crimes, particularly thefts, against their family members to support their habits, Kellas said. She’s seeing grandparents, friends and neighbors seeking custody of children whose parents are addicted to drugs.
“We definitely see the impact upon the families and the tearing apart of families,” said Winchester Public Schools Coordinator of Curriculum and Instruction Doug Joyner. “We see what happens not just with the individuals directly involved, but all of the other family members.”
“Affordable, accessible treatment” is needed, Cummings said.
Frederick County resident Shannon Roman said she had recently formed a group called Just One to try to address the drug problem. She is being helped by Jennifer Swain, a hospice nurse who shared her personal story.
Swain’s husband became addicted to painkillers and transitioned to heroin. He has been through rehab three times, costing $60,000.
“He still uses. He went from being [their daughter’s] baseball coach to living from house to house to house,” Swain said. “We’re not together anymore, but my heart is broken for him. I think pills is the source of most of the heroin [problem].”
When the prescription runs out, addicts turn to a cheaper alternative: heroin.
“If you have a pill problem somewhere in this nation, you will have a heroin problem somewhere thereafter,” Virginia State Police Supervisory Special Agent Jay Perry, who coordinates the task force, said.
He said the price of heroin has dropped from about $400 a gram to $150 a gram.
Nurse case manager Maria DeLalla works with drug-addicted mothers and drug-exposed infants at Winchester Medical Center. She said the hospital has a program, in partnership with the Northwestern Community Services Board, to connect pregnant women with substance abuse services.
“I think we’re the only ones, who do these things that amount to someone caring about them as an individual and actually bringing compassion to what she’s experiencing...” DeLalla said. “And trying to help her to understand that this is an attempt to give the whole family the opportunity to get off to a much better start.”
She said many of the women have turned to drugs to mask the pain they feel from childhood abuse.
DeLalla also said she was concerned that treatment programs, some of which are only for 30 or 60 days, are not long enough.
“Whereas you wouldn’t say, ‘You’ve had 30 days of cancer treatment,’” Kaine said. “I bet you guys are ahead of just about any other Virginia community [in addressing the opioid issue].”
