From prevention to working with families
On April 23, 2014, in the music room at the Haldane school in Cold Spring, Susan and Steve Salomone helped lead a conversation with parents about overdoses.
They had become experts on the topic in the worst way possible: Two years earlier, their 29-year-old son Justin died of a heroin overdose.
Shortly after Justin’s death, the couple created Drug Crisis in Our Backyard, a nonprofit designed to “bring awareness of the rampant use of heroin and opiates” in Putnam and Westchester counties. Susan retired as a teacher and devoted herself to the organization. “It’s been all-consuming,” she said.
Despite their efforts, and those of many others, the problem has not gone away. In fact, it has gotten worse.
There were seven deaths attributed to opioid overdoses in Putnam County the year of that Haldane meeting. Preliminary data shows 22 in 2022.
Salomone said young men continue to be the most likely victims. “You have young, bored boys who want to try something new and they begin taking drugs at age 13 or 14,” she said. “They’re more likely to become addicted than someone who started at an older age.”
The drugs of choice have changed since 2014, Salomone said. “The use of prescription opiates has dropped significantly, and also heroin” she said. “Fentanyl has taken over.” She said someone she is working with who is in recovery told her “you can’t even find heroin,” on the street because of all the fentanyl coming in from China, India and Mexico. Tranq, an animal tranquilizer, is used to extend the feeling produced by fentanyl.
“It’s not that fentanyl is just being hidden in fake pills that look like Adderall or Percocet, and people die not knowing,” she said. “Some seek out fentanyl; it’s beyond me, really.”
When the pandemic shutdown began in 2020, Salomone said Drug Crisis in Our Backyard lost momentum because the organization focused on outreach, giving church and community presentations, and training people to use naloxone, which can reverse an opioid overdose.
The organization shifted away from education and political advocacy to working directly with families in which someone is struggling with addiction. “There are two model programs, Community Reinforcement and Family Training and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy,” she said. “Families play an enormous role in how to effect change in their loved one’s behavior.”
Drug Crisis in Our Backyard also recently merged with the Westchester-based Alliance to Save Kids.
Many organizations in New York and around the country are expected to benefit from billions of dollars that will be distributed as part of settlements with pharmaceutical companies. Asked how that money should be spent, Salomone replied: “Marketing.”
“The opioid problem comes forward, then it goes away, then it comes forward, then it goes away,” she said. “For a long period of time, you don’t hear about it and, meanwhile, we have more deaths this year than in any other.”
She also favors spending money on peer support so people in long-term recovery can mentor those just coming out of treatment.
“A peer can help someone in recovery walk the right path until they’re on their own,” she said. “It’s a great use for the money — one of the best.”
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