Liverpool — For decades, police considered people who used illegal drugs as people who needed to be arrested and jailed.
Now, finally — thanks to forward-thinking law-enforcement leaders such as our own Onondaga County Sheriff Gene Conway — police are starting to see addiction as an illness rather than a crime.
Revolutionary responses
On Jan. 20, Sheriff Conway conducted a joint press conference with county Health Commissioner Dr. Indu Gupta to discuss more realistic and rational approaches to the current epidemic of heroin and painkillers.
“Enforcement alone is not winning the war against this drug epidemic,” Conway observed.
So the sheriff announced his supports of two revolutionary responses to the addiction problem, one a heroin-treatment program for incarcerated addicts and one designed to help addicts and their families in the community at large.
Because of the sheriff’s leadership, addicted inmates locally who want help will be given injections of Vivitrol, a drug that makes it impossible to get high on heroin or painkillers for some 30 days after getting the shot. About 100 jails and prisons across America are providing the drug to inmates who want to kick their habits.
And instead of making an endless string of arrests, the sheriff urges police officers and deputies to rethink things. Conway supports a program developed last year by Gloucester, Mass., Police Chief Leonard Campanello. The so-called “angel” program is not about arrest but about getting treatment for the addict.
For instance, law enforcement could actually provide transportation to treatment facilities for a person or a family looking for help.
“Law enforcement would be an additional resource of assistance for them,” Conway said. “This is where we need to recognize addiction for what is really is — an illness.”
Detox vs. detention
The way it worked in Gloucester, any addict who walked into the Gloucester Police Department with the remainder of their drug equipment or drugs and asked for help was not charged. Instead, police walked them through the system toward detox and recovery and assigned them an “angel” to be their guide.
continued — As a result, the angel program was adopted by nearly 40 departments in nine states by the end of last year.
Conway said the Sheriff’s Office will also start an angel program so that addicts who want help can contact deputies who will refer them to people in the community who can get them into treatment.
Sheriff Conway deserves a standing ovation for his innovative initiative to fight our community’s persistent addiction problem.
Christmas Eve hole-in-one
Many area golfers took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather on Christmas Eve. Liverpool golfer Anthony “Tony” LaValle, the Liverpool village Justice, received an early Christmas present.
At Timber Banks Golf Course in Baldwinsville, LaValle, 62, aced the 130-yard fourth hole with a 7-iron on Dec. 24. Witnesses were Bob Smith, Keith Hariland and Doug Harrison.
It was LaValle’s third hole-in-one. His first actually won him a car in the Camp Good Days and Special Times 1992 Tournament of Love.
Sinister ‘Sweeney’
Actor Liam Fitzpatrick and pianist Abel Searor, both of Liverpool, are featured in the current Baldwinsville Theatre Guild production of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”
Fitzpatrick puts his classically trained voice to good use as Beadle, and musician Searor conducts the show’s nine-piece pit band. Searor kicks off the production with an elegant and eerie church-organ intro, before leading the orchestra in its first rendition of “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd.”
Produced and directed by Korrie Strodel Taylor, a Liverpool native, “Sweeney Todd” stars Benjamin Sills as the murderous barber and Cathleen O’Brien Brown as his accomplice, the pie lady, Nellie Lovett.
The somewhat gruesome musical continues at the First Presbyterian Education Center, 64 Oswego St., at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Jan. 29 and 30, and Feb. 5 and 6; and at 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 31. Tickets cost $25, and $23 for seniors at the Jan. 31 matinee only; 877-8465; baldwinsvilletheatreguild.org.
The columnist can be contacted at [email protected].
