The fight against drug abuse is continuing on multiple fronts with two different programs set for Wednesday.
Logan Township Supervisor Jerry Fulare is promoting an event on Wednesday evening, while the Blair Countians for Drug Free Communities are scheduled to meet on Wednesday morning.
The Blair County Drug and Crime Awareness Committee will meet on Wednesday, March 31 at 7 p.m. at the Logan Elementary School in Greenwood in the gymnasium.
“The focus of the meeting will be the drug courts of Blair County,” said Fulare. “The featured speaker will be the honorable Judge Jolene Kopriva and agent Randy Feathers from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office.
“They’ll be talking about the drug court they are trying to develop,” Fulare told The Daily Herald.
“They also plan to talk about the meth labs that have popped up all over the place in the area. They also plan on addressing the heroin problem.
“This will be a great opportunity for concerned citizens to find out more about the real hidden danger of meth labs,” said Fulare.
Antis Township was the location of a meth lab bust in January. The problem has been growing at an alarming rate with the discovery of such labs doubling on a yearly basis according to recent statistics.
“We hold these meetings about every six months and have been doing so for the last four and half to five years,” said Fulare.
“How this got started was a few years ago it came to my attention we were having more than a drug death a month related to heroin overdoses in the first five months of that year.
“That caught my attention and caused a lot of concern in my neighborhood,” said Fulare.
“I had some contact with the Attorney General’s office and we invited drug enforcement officials to speak the community.
“I saw then how important it was to keep the community involved and to keep people educated,” said Fulare. “Without the community’s help law enforcement doesn’t really stand a chance in dealing with these problems.
“One thing that’s been successful is the Push out the Pusher’s Hotline and I think it’s going to be even more important as people become aware of meth labs,” said Fulare. “They can call the hotline and report it if they see a meth lab going up and operating in their neighborhood.”
In addition to Fulare’s event, the Blair County MH/MR and D & A office is offering a Wednesday morning program, a meeting of the Blair Countians for Drug Free Communities at the Logan Valley Mall Community Room.
Cathy Henderson of the AIDS Intervention Project for Home Nursing Agency will speak about HIV/AIDS and how the disease has changed over the years.
Henderson will also discuss Hepatitis C and its relationship to IV drug use. For more information on the event contact the Blair County Administrative office at 693-3023.
