Addiction activist: There’s a generation dying

WASHINGTON — Patricia Perry’s son has been struggling with heroin addiction for six years, and he won’t allow her to help him.

But that did not stop the 53-year-old Newark mother from traveling to Washington on Sunday to join the pulsing crowd on the National Mall and add her voice to a new addiction advocacy movement.

“My son doesn’t want my help, so I’m helping others,” Perry said as she joined thousands of others at the UNITE to Face Addiction rally and the first anti-addiction demonstration on the National Mall. The new level of activism and advocacy around addiction has been fueled in part by the heroin epidemic, which has devastated Ohio and other states across the country

“Our kids are sick, and they need help,” said Cindy Koumoutzis, a North Canton resident and leader for OhioCAN (Change Addiction Now).

Sunday’s event was part political show-of-force, part star-studded festival. One minute, the crowd was cheering and swaying to performances by Sheryl Crow and Steven Tyler — the next minute, they were attentively applauding a policy call-to-arms from the nation’s drug czar, the U.S. Surgeon General, and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, among others.

“We are here today to stop the whispering about this disease,” Michael Botticelli, director of the office of National Drug Control Policy and himself a recovering addict, said to roars of applause. “People with substance abuse and people in recovery can change this conversation.”

The lead singer of The Fray rocked the crowd, after comparing addiction to a “cage fight” that “can be beat.” Then Baltimore City Health Commissioner Leana Wen bounded on stage to give a demonstration of how to administer Naloxone, the drug used to reverse the effects of narcotic drug overdose.

“It’s time for us to look at science over stigma,” Wen said, arguing that everyone should know how to use Naloxone.

Some in the crowd waved signs reading, “We recover and we vote,” while others clutched photos of loved ones lost to heroin and other scourges. The Ohio and Kentucky contingents spread blankets and chairs out in front of the stage, tearfully recounting their own stories and pleading for policymakers to take action.

Perry said she wanted to learn about new resources and strategies and take that information back to Licking County.

Across the lawn, was David Logan, a 73-year-old recovering addict who runs Prospect House Inc., a treatment center in Cincinnati. He said Sunday’s rally represented a new moment of hope, and possibly change, for addiction advocates.

“People are getting a little bolder and stepping into the sunshine,” Logan said. He said one in 10 Ohioans need substance abuse treatment.

“If we had that record with tuberculosis or HIV, there would be an outcry,” he said. “I hope this is the beginning of an outcry.”

On Monday, many of the rally’s attendees will converge on Congress to lobby for action on pending legislation to expand treatment and reduce barriers for recovered addicts to rebuild their lives.

Rally organizers have outlined two main legislative goals: getting drug addiction treated as a public health crisis, not a law enforcement problem; and strengthening civil liberties protections for recovering addicts seeking to rebuild their lives.

One bill, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, sponsored by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, would provide grants to combat opioid and heroin abuse and fund alternatives to incarceration for those with substance abuse problems, among other changes.

“There’s an opportunity here to really take it to the next level in terms of what works in treatment and recovery,” Portman said in an interview before the rally. “This is one of things where you devote some energy and resources up front it will have huge impacts downstream.”

Perry said she believes Congress will get the message.

“There’s a generation dying, and if we don’t get something done,” that generation will be lost, she said.