SEE SOMETHING? SAY SOMETHING!

Hope RiceI have just read an article on the NBC website stating that Connecticut will pass a law October 1, 2014 to allow the police to administer Narcan and Naloxone for a heroin overdose that could potentially kill an addict or for that matter a young person who naively and curiously experiments with this dangerous and illegal drug for the first time. My first reaction is What. Took. So. Long., and what if it is your kid who dies of an overdose before October 1? It has been an ant...idote for a long time but because it has been reserved for only medical people to administer, many have died. The little girl in East Windsor could possibly be alive today. Ask her parents how they feel now that they know her life could have been saved. At such an early age, it was very likely that she could have overcome her need to alter her mind with these dangerous substances. I will never be able to understand how we can tippy toe around something as risky to our kids as these drugs are and still allow our "pride" and perhaps embarrassment to prevent us from confronting this behavior. I do not believe privacy laws should trump safety and our need to work harder at protecting our young, vulnerable kids from this danger. If a kid experimenting with drugs is an indication of a mental disorder, then we have and have had for many years a large number of mentally disturbed kids in our society. Teenagers are known for taking risks, succumbing to peer pressure, discretionary behavior, not always telling the truth to their parents, and many other immature behaviors They become mentally disturbed after the drugs have invaded their nervous systems and the mysterious illness of addiction takes priority over everything else. We have for too long just tossed the disease of addiction on the back burner as it conjures up a negative feeling about someone and it is out of “respect” that we avoid discussing it.. It appears to me it is the grown ups who need to address this problem publically and aggressively and take away the filters when we speak of it. The way we have protected the problem has helped no one. Let’s begin trying harder at protecting our kids. This requires a community working together. SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING. It boggles my mind to think that any parent would not be grateful to be told by another adult that their child in danger.