Oxy decimates youth; community fights back with forum
“His small hands were curled up, just like when he was small. I just crawled into the bed and place my arms around him.”
As she cradled her dead son, the police and emergency medical technicians arrived.
“They kept trying to pull me away, but I just wanted them to leave me alone with my boy.”
Harney said she began to scream and weep, “Where are you taking my son?”
Minutes before, Harney had received a frantic call from her son’s roommate, Weston Hooks. Hooks told her that Garrett was not breathing and he feared a drug overdose. Harney sped to Garrett’s side, but she was too late.
Garrett Harney died on Aug. 20, 2006, from an accidental overdose of prescription Xanax and illegally bought OxyContin.
The powerful anti-anxiety drug Xanax had recently been prescribed to help Garrett Harney stop smoking.
“I thought, ‘Who does this? Who plans a funeral for their 20- year-ancient kid?’”
Harney stumbled, weeping, “I mean … what … happened?” her voice trailed away. Then she pulled herself together.
“Nothing brings my boy back,” she said, quietly. “But if I can save another child and save another family from the pain of losing their child, then I’ll continue to fight to try and make a difference.”
Harney has partnered with Coastal Behavioral Healthcare, First Step Addiction Recovery Programs and the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, Pharmaceutical Diversion Unit, for a brutally frank discussion regarding the current prescription drug epidemic in Sarasota County.
The forum will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Riverview High School auditorium. The community is urged to attend.
Detective Don Kennard praised Sheriff Tom Knight, Family Pharmacy, Super Chem, Sweetbay, WWSB, ABC news channel 7 and the Sarasota County School Board for their support of the forum.
“If 109 manatees were swept up onto Siesta beach in a year, people would be frantic,” said Harney.
Yet according to Harney, recreational prescription drug use resulted in the death of, “109 kids in Sarasota in 2008.”
“Russell Vega (medical examiner for Sarasota County) told me that he has never done so many autopsies on young people,” she said.
When a child succumbs to drug addiction, Harney said that the first response is often to blame the parents.
Harney said she was very involved with her son, Garrett, and her daughter, Tara.
“We were very active in the community,” she said. “I was a stay-at-home mom.”
Her son was active in Small League, soccer and organized sports. Tara was a cheerleader.
“We have to stop blaming each other and solve the problem,” Harney said. “These prescription drugs are non-discriminatory — color, socio-economic — it does not matter, it hits us all.”
According to Tara Harney, 23, her brother’s drug use began “in the summer between 8th and 9th grade.” It began innocently, she thought, with smoking pot.
“No one is perfect, but Garrett just wanted to fit in and be accepted,” Tara Harney said. “I think that was a contributing factor.”
Tara Harney is petite and blonde, with sapphire blue eyes. She is currently enrolled at University of South Florida and hopes to major in psychology and marketing.
“Garrett and I looked alike,” she said. “Some kids look like their mom or their dad, but we just looked like each other.”
Her brother was a “fantastic kid,” she said. “Fearless, but insecure.” he attended both public and parochial schools; he received his diploma posthumously from Ave Maria Preparatory School.
“School was hard; there are so many kids who are just not nice,” Tara Harney said. “Once he started smoking pot, honestly I think he just got in with the wrong crowd.
Tara Harney said that she “was not a tattletale and besides, my friends were drinking and having keg parties.
“Kids at SHS just liked weed and beer,” so she felt hypocritical judging Garrett and his friends for recreational use of prescription drugs.
Garrett Harney’s high of choice was the lethal combination of OxyContin and Xanax. according to Tara Harney, both are often prescribed for teens after the extraction of wisdom teeth.
“When kids at school had their teeth extracted, other kids would beg them to buy their pills,” she said.
Google “oxy, xanax combo” and you will get 2 million hits. Sites like drugsandbooze.com encourage the use of prescription drug abuse. The site oxyabusekills.com warns of dire side effects that may continue for a year after stopping use.
According to his mother, Garrett stole his first Xanax from his grandmother’s medicine cabinet.
He bought his first OxyContin “from a kid in the locker room who took it from his mom’s prescription,” she added. “He told Garrett ‘it’s legal and you will feel fantastic.’” Addiction immediately followed.
“My son’s life was never the same,” Cindy Harney said.
In addition to Cindy Harney, the forum will be composed of frontline professionals who comprehend the devastation of the OxyContin-Xanax epidemic in Sarasota.
The panel of speakers will include P.J. Brooks, vice president of First Step Outpatient Services; Detective Kennard; Dr. Russell Vega, Sarasota County medical examiner; Dr. Jerry Thompson, Coastal Behavioral Healthcare CEO; as well as a young adult who is currently recovering from prescription drug addiction.
According to Brooks, insidious, severe OxyContin and Xanax addiction often occurs the first time a youngster tries the drugs.
Dependence is prevalent throughout the county. The users are not necessarily poor: “These are working-class, middle-class and upper-class families,” Brooks said.
He said that Sarasota is one of three counties in Florida that has funded a Marchman Act, a civil procedure that allows the family of an addicted teen or adult to obtain a court-ordered assessment and stabilization of their loved one.
“It’s an additional tool. The problem is that the legally acquired prescription that they are addicted to, and taking, is killing them,” Brooks said.
Brooks refers to Broward County as “ground zero, the epicenter,” of OxyContin and prescription drug abuse, but “non-legitimate pain clinics are a very lucrative cash-based business.”
As of June 2010, there were 21 pain clinics in Sarasota that are authorized to dispense pharmaceutical drugs.
Brooks has three children. he has more than 17 years experience counseling drug-addicted youths as well as a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling. Compassion radiates from him.
“Crack decimated society,” he said. “We lost an entire generation to coke, but it was an arrestable offense.
“With Oxy and Xanax, it is way worse,” he added. “The addict often has a legitimate prescription.”
“The trajectory for these drugs is addiction in high school, but they’re not dying until 25 to 27 years old,” he said.
Brooks said that in his experience, addiction is often a forgone conclusion when physicians prescribe a combination of OxyContin and Xanax.
“Oxy if your pain is a seven on a scale of one to 10. Then Xanax for anxiety. and if you look at the clinical literature, they are contraindicated and,” he emphasized, “both are for small-term use only!”
The solution, according to Brooks, is for the community, for families, to step up.
“We have to engage the medical community and the pain clinics,” Brooks said. “Know that this addiction is chronic, but treatable.
“Talk to your kids! Pry, invade their privacy,” he continued. “Our kids don’t have to like us. Check your kid’s cell phone. Listen, when you ask your kid a question, are they vague?
“It’s not what they say; it’s what they don’t say.”
Most importantly, “Empty your medicine cabinet,” Kennard said. “The Sheriff’s Department has a no-questions-questioned drop box. Just get it out of your house,” he said.
Kennard’s Pharmaceutical Diversion Unit was born of “Sheriff Knight’s realization that traditional law enforcement was unlikely to find success,” he said.
“We needed the triad of law enforcement, education and preventive measures like developing partnerships with Coastal, First Step and the pharmacies.
“We are trying to make the world a small smaller for those who intend to commit fraud to abuse these drugs.”
Kennard said that statistically, teens have their first beer and their first high in their own home.
“Be proactive and secure your meds; get old meds out of your house,” he said.
Brooks and Kennard emphasized that parents watch for tell-tale signs, and not assume the “not my kid” posture.
“Did they quit playing sports?” Brooks said. “Grades drop? Grades don’t have to drop from an a to an F; it may be a slow creep. Maybe a to B or C to D, but e-mail the teacher.
“Invite your kid’s friends to your home and get to know them,” he added.
Brooks’ fervent hope is that parents and students will attend the forum, learn to recognize the signs of OxyContin and Xanax addiction and stem the tide of fatalities in the community.
Once addicted, he said, “Only one out of 10 kids will seek treatment, but treatment is what they need.
“If it was a question of willpower, I would not have a job. It is a medical situation. It’s addiction.”
Garrett Harney is dead. His parents’ 30-year marriage collapsed. His sister said that she avoids meeting new people because they will ask about her family and her brother.
Weston Hooks has tremendous guilt. “He didn’t know that the worst thing you can do is place someone to bed, to sleep it off,” said Cindy Harney.
“Take friends to the E.R. — don’t let them go to sleep,” she said. “Stop blaming the addict and take away the availability of Oxy, just stop prescribing these addictive drugs.”
<a href="http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101026/ARTICLE/10261071/-1/NEWS?Title=Oxy-decimates-youth-community-fights-back-with-forumtag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101026/ARTICLE/10261071/-1/NEWS?Title=Oxy-decimates-youth-community-fights-back-with-forumTue, 26 Oct 2010 16:03:47 GMT 00:00″>Oxy decimates youth; community fights back with forum