Former NBA player Chris Herren told his story of recovery at Delaware State University as part of the Delaware Goes Purple program

A sea of 600 people stretched in front of basketball star Chris Herren as he took the podium at Delaware State University Wednesday, Oct. 9.

“I’m so in awe,” Herren said simply. Less than 12 years ago the disease of addiction had him heating his house with diesel fuel and stealing food for groceries, he said. Now, he was sharing his story of recovery to a crowd in Dover, many wearing purple in support for substance abuse.

Herren played two seasons in the NBA, one for the Denver Nuggets and one for his hometown Boston Celtics, and seven seasons overseas. But, as he was chasing his childhood dream, he said, he was also chasing death.

He shared details from his years of addiction, from the Miller Lites he drank as a 13-year-old to the first time he used cocaine as a freshman at Boston College to the moment he became an intravenous drug addict at age 24.

“I thank God for all the bad days. The bad days eventually become a blessing,” Herren said.

He talked about his continuing recovery.

Herren has been sober since Aug. 1, 2008. He spoke about his relationships with his wife and children, and how he was driven to become a better father.

“The greatest gift I’ve ever been able to give is for the last 11 and a half years, I’ve been the same dad,” he said. “I’ve been the dad I wish I had.”

He talked about what he plans to do if his kids would edge toward substance abuse.

“I won’t punish, yell or take away,” he said. He explained that he would walk into their room, hug them and ask one question: “Can you please tell me why?”

Herren shares his story 200 times each year, often visiting schools to talk about prevention and early intervention with students. He said he thinks schools need to hire more guidance counselors and do more to educate kids about mindfulness.

“I’m ashamed that wellness and mindfulness is not a core class in our school system,” he said.

At the end, Herren took questions from the audience. Someone asked if he had a relationship with the man who first hooked him on pain relievers. He said yes.

“Forgiveness is critical,” he said. “When I was getting high, I wanted to kill him. When I was sober, I wanted to hug him.”

In every presentation he gives, Herren said he has one goal: he hopes one person will walk away wanting to get better, for themselves and for their family.


His nonprofit Herren Project began in 2011 to help others navigate the road to recovery and raise awareness about substance use prevention.

In 2018, he and his wife, Heather, founded Herren Wellness, a residential health and wellness program in Massachusetts. It helps guests lead healthy, substance-free lives. The mantra for the program is “discover your why.”

DELAWARE GOES PURPLE

The Sussex County Health Coalition and Delaware Goes Purple, a statewide campaign to raise awareness about substance abuse, hosted the free community presentation at the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Center at Delaware State University.

In her opening statement, executive director of Sussex County Health Coalition, Peggy Geisler, talked about raising awareness.

“All of us are leaders in our families, in our communities, for each other,” she said.

Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long echoed Geisler’s call for community support when she introduced Herren.

“It’s OK to struggle and ask for help if you have a mental health or substance use problem,” she said. “Every person counts, and we care about you.”

To get involved with Delaware Goes Purple or learn more, visit DelawareGoesPurple.org or their Facebook page at www.facebook/DelawareGoesPurple.


https://www.doverpost.com/news/20191010/forgiveness-key-to-addiction-recovery-basketball-star-says?fbclid=IwAR1JE0-xKQQXtdGZcmFoWK5x9TeI7EHSSVFSq04j4aat6zpuo4WYKvdNxSs

HelpIsHereDE.com joins the Delaware Goes Purple campaign to help connect more Delawareans struggling with addiction to the care they need. With that connection to treatment, you or your loved one's journey to recovery can begin.

Call the Department of Health and Social Services' 24/7 Crisis Helpline to talk with a trained professional who can help explore treatment options:
New Castle County: 1-800-652-2929
Kent or Sussex counties: 1-800-345-6785

Or visit HelpIsHereDE.com to find treatment services and resources in Delaware or nearby states:
https://www.helpisherede.com/Get-Help/Addiction-Help

Join the Lt. Governor Bethany Hall Long for this FREE sponsored event where Chris Herren a nationally known motivational speaker, former NBA Player will be presenting on his journey through addiction into recovery and his message of hope on October 9, 2019 at Delaware State University. Doors open at 6:00 PM and the event starts promptly at 7:00 Seating is limited .

Attendees are asked to wear Purple in support the Delaware Goes Purple Campaign to reduce the stigma of mental health and substance use disorder .

Chris Herren, a basketball legend from Fall River, Massachusetts, was an All-American, broke scoring records and was recruited by the nation’s top colleges. Herren realized his lifelong dream of playing in the NBA when he was drafted by the Denver Nuggets in 1999 and then traded to his hometown team, the Boston Celtics, before losing his career and almost his family to the disease of addiction.

Get your free tickets ~ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/delaware-goes-purple-presents-the-chris-herren-story-tickets-71289933109?aff=escb&utm-source=cp&fbclid=IwAR0wcrcE9zcXvEoXWu1NZQlxJLLlTqOTYmf03ckqqSkW8YSoziwuwWxlhuo&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing

Help Is Here can guide you to services and programs in Delaware. Addiction can affect anyone and no one should have to navigate it alone.

https://www.helpisherede.com/Get-Help/Addiction-Help

The Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) is issuing this health alert to provide the health care community with information regarding the increased presence of fentanyl among the State’s drug overdose deaths and illicit drug supply. Additionally, the alert is to inform personnel that fentanyl does not show up on standard drug screens, and to provide recommendations for communicating important information with patients.

Summary

Fentanyl is a potent opioid that is increasingly being mixed into illicitly sold drugs, often without the buyer’s knowledge. In Delaware, fentanyl was involved in 72 percent of overdose deaths during 2018, up from 58 percent in 2017 according to the state’s Division of Forensic Science (DFS), and is driving the increase in overdose deaths. During 2018 there were more fatal overdoses than any year on record. When data are finalized the tally is expected to be 400, up from 345 in 2017.  

Fentanyl has been most commonly present in heroin-involved deaths; however, fentanyl has been increasingly identified in overdose deaths involving cocaine, without heroin. The DFS reports that in 2018, of the overdose deaths involving cocaine without heroin, 19 percent involved fentanyl, up from 13 percent in 2017. DFS laboratory testing data has confirmed the presence of fentanyl mixed with seized cocaine and methamphetamine products.

Urine tests using fentanyl-testing strips have also identified the presence of fentanyl with cocaine, THC, and PCP among individuals who were unaware of the presence of fentanyl or any opioids in their drug product. Opioid naïve individuals, such as people who use recreational drugs occasionally, are at high risk of overdose from fentanyl.

Background

Fentanyl is a synthetic, short-acting opioid analgesic with a potency 50 to 100 times that of morphine. Fentanyl carries a high risk of overdose, and recent national cases of fentanyl-related morbidity and mortality increasingly have been linked to illegally manufactured fentanyl and fentanyl analogs. These drugs are sold illicitly for their heroin-like effects and may be mixed with heroin and/or cocaine and other illicit drugs with or without the user’s knowledge. In addition, recent law enforcement seizures in several jurisdictions across the United States have identified fentanyl sold in powder and pill formulations, which may be marked as other substances, including benzodiazepines and opioid analgesics.

Medical providers should be mindful that fentanyl is not detected by standard urine opioid immunoassays; therefore, opioid or any illicit drug exposure should not be ruled out based on toxicology screen results. Fentanyl can be detected using fentanyl testing strips, which can be acquired by through various manufactures, or by working with your laboratory to utilize an enhanced/expanded UDS panel screen. Those providers who are participating in the DSAMH START Initiative can obtain testing strips through DSAMH.

Clinical Information:

• Fentanyl is an opioid analgesic. The biological effects of fentanyl are indistinguishable from those of heroin.
• Treatment is the same as for other opioid overdose, however, larger than usual doses of naloxone (2-10mg) might be required for reversal of the opioid effects.
• Symptoms of overdose are characteristic of central nervous system depression: lethargy, respiratory depression, pinpoint pupils, change in consciousness, seizure, and/or coma.
• In the ED, consider using an enhanced Standard of Care protocol using symptoms versus presentation of OD alone AND testing for fentanyl presence. Symptoms considered should include: chest pain, abdominal pain, change in mental status and unstable/abnormal vital signs.

Recommendations

The Delaware Department of Health and Social Services is alerting medical personnel that:

(1) Due to the presence of fentanyl a higher dose (2-10mg) or multiple doses of naloxone per overdose event may be required to reverse some opioid-involved overdoses;

(2) Patients presenting to emergency departments with symptoms indicating opioid intoxication may be unaware that they ingested fentanyl;

(3) Patients should be advised that recreational drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana and PCP might contain fentanyl.

Providers can educate patients who are substance users about overdose prevention strategies including:

• increasing the awareness of the fentanyl being mixed with any type of illicit drug including cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, and PCP;
• avoiding using drugs alone; avoiding mixing drugs (including alcohol); and
• emphasizing that treatment can work and encouraging participation in an SUD treatment program, especially one that uses medication-assisted treatment for the treatment of opioid use disorder;
• recommending that patients participate in overdose prevention education and have naloxone on hand. Visit HelpIsHereDE.com to find out how to get naloxone or participate in the Syringe Services Program.

A fentanyl warning PDF is available to hand out or display in health care settings at: https://www.helpisherede.com/Health-Care-Providers/Prescriber-Downloads.

Medication-assisted treatment with methadone, buprenorphine or naltrexone also prevents overdose. Treatment locators are available at: HelpIsHereDE.com or https://www.samhsa.gov.

Individuals seeking support or treatment for substance use issues for themselves or their loved ones can contact the crisis hotline: In New Castle County call 800-652-2929, in Kent and Sussex counties call 800-345-6785.

https://www.delawaregoespurple.org/news/fentanyl-drug-warning/

Delaware lawmakers Wednesday introduced legislation that would force major drug manufacturers to help cover the costs of opioid addiction by imposing a fee on the amount of drugs dispensed in the state.

The measure, Senate Bill 34, would create a two-tier fee on pharmaceutical firms that produce the highest-strength and most widely distributed opioid products available for sale in Delaware, with the proceeds marked for a special fund to pay for treatment and prevention services.

The fee is expected to generate $8 million over three years, but would only kick in above a certain threshold, based on a formula used to calculate the strength of the drugs.

“For too long, these companies have reaped record profits while avoiding responsibility for the pain and suffering their products have caused,” the bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Stephanie Hansen, D-Middletown, said in a statement announcing the bill.

“With this bill, we will begin holding these companies accountable by forcing them to direct some of that revenue toward breaking the cycle of abuse, addiction, and death,” she said.

While at least 14 other states have introduced similar legislation, only New York has passed a comparable measure. New York’s Opioid Stewardship Act targeted both opioid manufacturers and distributors. However, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the Southern District of New York in December struck down that law as unconstitutional, finding that a provision barring companies from passing the cost on to consumers had violated the dormant commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Failla’s ruling, which is now on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held that the OSA unlawfully imposed a penalty on opioid sales made outside of New York, breaching a the constitutional prohibition against state laws that place an excessive burden on interstate commerce.

An earlier version of Hansen’s bill had included similar language, but supporters scrapped the provision in the wake of the New York ruling. Instead, SB 34 seeks to impose an “impact fee” only on manufacturers whose products in Delaware exceed 100,000 morphine milligram equivalents, or MME, in a given quarter.

Producers of name-brand drugs would pay a fee of one cent per MME contained in each pill. For generic drug-makers, the levy would total one-quarter of a cent for every MME sold in the First State.

For 10 milligram pills of Oxycodone—the most widely available prescription opioid in Delaware—the fee would amount to four cents for each generic pill and 15 cents for every name-brand pill sold in the state, Hansen said in an interview.

Hansen said the levy would not substantially increase the price of prescription opioids in Delaware because prices for the drugs are set nationally, and the overall fee would be “very small” compared to the profits that companies make off their products.

While individual firms could still pass the costs off on consumers, she said it would be more cost-effective for companies to just pay the fee, rather than alter the way they do business.

Hansen said she was confident her new bill avoided the constitutional pitfalls of the New York legislation but also acknowledged that the bill could be susceptible to lawsuits from drug companies and special interests.

“I do expect some thought to be given to litigation,” she said. “Nonetheless, I’m hoping they will do the cost-benefit analysis and decide it’s in their best interest to pay the small fee and be at the table” for discussions on how to solve the current crisis.

According to the bill’s fiscal note, the impact fee is expected to generate $2.8 million in the 2020 fiscal year and $2.7 million and $2.5 million in the next two years, respectively.

That revenue would go to a designated “prescription opioid impact fund” to finance addiction-prevention and opioid-addiction services, including paying for overdose-reversing drugs, treatment programs, sober-living facilities and services for the under- and uninsured.

The bill is the latest effort in Delaware to combat the opioid addiction epidemic, which has been linked to 112 opioid-related deaths in 2016 alone. In 2014, 215 babies were treated for withdrawal in Delaware hospitals at a cost of $9.6 million, according to statistics included with the legislation.

Delaware is one of 30 states to sue opioid manufacturers and producers in state court for allegedly misleading doctors and consumers about the dangers of their products.

Last year’s budget approved $100,000 for substance use disorder services and the overdose-reversing drug Naloxone for first responders, as well as $328,500 for 20 additional sober living beds and $990,000 for emergency room consultations. Gov. John Carney’s recommended budget for the upcoming fiscal year also requests $1.8 million to expand prevention and treatment options in the state.

Hansen said she expected SB 34 to be scheduled for a Senate committee hearing in the coming weeks and hopes for a floor vote to follow by the end of March.

https://www.law.com/delawarelawweekly/2019/03/13/bill-aims-to-charge-major-opioid-makers-for-drugs-sold-in-the-state/?slreturn=20190712181036