By Mark Glennon -
WILMETTE – Heroin and opioid abuse is the hidden scourge of the North Shore. With Chicago the center of the North American heroin trade, the drug is cheap, abundant, and easy for teenagers and adults to acquire.
The strain on families and communities has been felt across the Chicago area, including the North Shore, where affluence, strong school systems, and close families are not immune.
Approximately two years ago, the Illinois State Crime Commission investigated and declared heroin to be a medical epidemic. This explosive narcotic proved itself to be just that as an epidemic. The Commission is now declaring sexual exploitation of heroin addicted youth as a national disaster.
The Illinois State Crime Commission will present the second summit in their series of Organized Suburban and Rural Child Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking Summit on Wednesday, May 18, 2016 at the Wilmette Community Recreation Center located at 3000 Glenview Road in Wilmette, Illinois. The summit is scheduled to begin at 9:30 am and is open to the public.
The event is being hosted by ISCC board member Joan Lasonde, a longtime Wilmette community activist, a mom to three, and a DCFS-licensed foster mother.
The previous summit heard from experts in law enforcement, academia, religion, legal, medical experts, and elected officials that participated to discuss this national disaster that is rapidly encroaching in rural and suburban communities and was a huge success.
Please contact Jerry Elsner, Executive Director of the Illinois State Crime Commission at 630 778-9191 for any additional information.
Too much money on the North Shore.
Will try to attend
People who can no longer get percocets and vicodines will turn to heroin. The reall horror is the number of people in the country addicted to prescribed pain killers. Once off the prescriptions they go to other things out of desperation.
Addiction is an illness and needs to be treated as such. It can’t be wished away. Medical intervention is needed.
That is not the reason most addicts use heroin. They may have started by buying prescription painkillers off the street; stop implicating the medical community as the culprits
TIm Ryan, cover of Sunday Trib, goes by
“A Man in Recovery: from Dope to Hope” spoke
At Wilmettrotary.org and had such a powerful message
People sat an extra 30 mins after
Adjournment. Incredible man addicted to saving lives from
Overdose deathes. His site is: Amirf.org
He seeks out speaking Opps.
Jim Hardee
Wilmette Rotary, Pres.
Um, many in the medical community agree and it is a widely held belief that this got the epidemic going. https://psmag.com/how-big-pharma-gave-america-its-heroin-problem-34f1de02048d#.8bhny1ftm