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Hundreds participate in event to end heroin epidemic
By Jordan Cohen
WARREN
The Warren area is in the middle of what the Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention calls a heroin epidemic that has claimed more than 40 lives in Trumbull County this year. The specter of these growing numbers of heroin overdoses – three more fatalities in the last week – made ASAP’s third annual Rally for Recovery on Saturday especially timely.
Erin Primm of Warren, one of an estimated 300 participants rallying for substance-abuse awareness, knows how heroin can rip a family apart. She said her 26-year old brother, Justin Simmons of Warren, fatally overdosed last January, less than two years after his best friend’s life also was claimed by heroin.
Primm, clad in a T-shirt that read “I hate heroin,” said her brother “didn’t have the cash up-front” and had no health insurance that could have helped him get treatment. “I think it might have helped him,” she said.
Among the family accompanying Primm at the rally and mile-long walk through Perkins Park was her late brother’s 2-year-old daughter, Julianne Simmons. Attached to the toddler’s stroller was a photo of the child and her father in happier times and a sign that captured the family’s heartbreak:
“I used to be my daddy’s angel,” her sign read, “and now he’s mine.”
“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Capt. Jeff Orr of the Trumbull County Sheriff’s department who commands the Trumbull Ashtabula Group Drug Task Force. “Our society is changing; we’re not keeping up with these things, and we don’t pay close enough attention.”
Orr said he believes drug addiction starts with young people experimenting with marijuana. “But then they take the next step to prescription drugs they find in their home and from there, it’s not long before they move to heroin because they think they can handle it,” Orr said.
For that reason, TAG is vehemently opposed to State Issue 3, the legalization of marijuana. The task force prominently posted a large sign encouraging voter rejection of the issue.
There was no sign of any Issue 3 proponents among the vendor stands near the Warren Amphitheatre where the walkers assembled. Instead, drug-rehabilitation organizations and faith-based groups provided printed material for helping addicts and their families.
“We’ve got a lot of people in recovery for alcoholism and drugs right now,” said Lauren Thorp, ASAP project director, “but we want the community to understand that it is possible to have hope.”
Weston Rajkovich, 25, of Youngstown, a recovering addict agrees. Rajkovich, hooked on heroin for five years, said he stole from his family and friends to pay for his habit before finally admitting he needed help.
“I’ve been clean for five months, and it’s been the best time of my life,” said Rajkovich who lives in a rehabilitation facility in Youngstown. He admitted that the possibility of a relapse “is always scary, but you have to surround yourself with the right people who are doing the right things.”
ASAP’s Thorp agreed that support from families in particular and the community in general is critical for helping alcoholics and drug addicts recover from their addictions – a theme inscribed on T-shirts worn by rally walkers:
“We stand together so nobody stands alone.”