TUPPER LAKE – Citizens and community leaders are taking a stand against drug and alcohol abuse in Tupper Lake with help from the U.S. National Guard.

After months of mounting concern and public forums regarding adolescent substance abuse in the town, the Tupper Lake Community Engagement Coalition was formed and is now making positive changes for the community in its early development. This effort has proved timely, as the Office of the New York State Comptroller released a report Thursday stating that heroin and opioid overdose rates are rising faster in New York than most U.S. states.

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Community concerns

Although the North Country isn’t specifically covered in the report, it has still played a part in the 1,833 overdose deaths associated with heroin and prescription opioids in New?York state. A concern in Tupper Lake is younger kids using harder drugs, sometimes while in school, according to Tupper Lake police Chief Eric Proulx.

Proulx said the previous trend among bored adolescents in the town was mostly just marijuana, but police have been noting a rise in teenagers who are turning to heroin and prescription drugs. As the use became more apparent, the Tupper Lake Central School District started a series of anti-drug forums.

“I was tasked with starting these forums because we were noticing such a high rate of not only addiction, but we were losing community members to overdoses,” said Wendy Cross, the school’s prevention educator and student assistant counselor. “We had almost 200 people at the second forum that were from Tupper Lake, which as you know is a small town, so to have that many people was amazing.”

Alcohol use among youth has also been a concern in the community. According to Amanda Helms, “kids are definitely drinking more at a younger age, and they aren’t being very shy about it.” Helms, who worked at the high school and was recently appointed as Tupper Lake’s youth activities coordinator believes this behavior could result from poor role models and a lack of activities for adolescents.

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A coalition forms

Members attending the forums eventually consolidated their efforts into the Tupper Lake Community Engagement Coalition. The TLCEC consists of parents, kids, business owners, school officials, police and other community leaders who share a common goal of making the town a healthier place to raise children.

It took only a few months for leaders of the coalition to open a community center and draft a list of programs to reduce substance abuse in the community. Now, with influential community allies such as the Wild Center, the TLCEC is refining its administration and planning for future growth.

The coalition was inspired by the Connecting Youth & Community program in Lake Placid, according to TLCEC board member Jon Kopp. Kopp was introduced to CYC while visiting the Shipman Youth Center to generate ideas for Tupper Lake’s recreation center.

After attending a CYC board meeting the next day, Kopp met Sgt. Candice Stefanik of the U.S. National Guard, who has worked with the military’s counter drug task force for 15 years. One of Stefanik’s jobs is to help kickstart community coalitions in struggling areas such as Tupper Lake.

“We brought the idea back to Tupper,” Kopp said, “and at the last community drug meeting we decided to just merge into one coalition.” The purpose of a coalition, Kopp said, is to get input and support from a variety of social and administrative circles in the town.

“What I liked is that there’s young people on it, so they can give good feedback on what’s going on in their world,” said Tupper Lake Town Supervisor Patricia Littlefield. “They know a lot more about it than we (the adults) do.”

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The first steps

A first major effort of the coalition will be to conduct a community assessment to get a realistic snapshot of substance abuse in Tupper Lake.

“It’s easy to say heroin is a big problem, or drinking is a big problem, but how do you really know?” Kopp said. “What we’ll do is go and talk to the emergency room people, the pharmacists, the doctors, the police and the youth. The nice thing about it is the National Guard will help us with this and they’ve done it so many times that they know the effective ways to do it.”

Officer Jay Peets of the Tupper Lake Police Department, who is a regular law enforcement representative at TLCEC meetings, said the coalition is working to install a drug drop-off box outside of the emergency services building in Tupper Lake for people to dispose of leftover medication.

The unit would be bolted to the ground and surveilled to avoid theft. A similar drop-off box at the local Kinney’s Drugs has been successful in the past, securing large amounts of drugs that have potential for abuse, Peets said.

“Say you go to the doctor’s because you had a wisdom tooth removed and he gave you some oxycodone and you didn’t use it all,” Kopp said. “Well you don’t want that sitting in your medicine cabinet so that every single person who comes in your bathroom can just come grab it out of there.”

According to the Center for Disease Control, prescription painkillers are the strongest risk factor for heroin addiction.

The TLCEC has also started a youth activities sub-committee, which the Wild Center in Tupper Lake has taken interest in, Kopp said. The TLCEC has discussed possible collaborations with the museum for art shows, open mic nights and bonfires to provide children with alternatives to drug and alcohol use.

The TLCEC’s next public meeting is June 14 at 5 p.m. in the community room of the emergency services building. Meetings will take place on the second Tuesday of every month at that location and time.

“Anybody that has any kind of interest in all in keeping drugs off the streets, and helping us make the community a better place is more than welcome to come,” Kopp said.

“I commend Jon Kopp for doing this,” Littlefield said. “This is a nice group of stakeholders in Tupper Lake that is seriously interesting in making a difference for this drug epidemic that is affecting not just our community, but it’s everywhere.”