#gopurple

#GOPURPLE

I am challenging everyone to help turn the world purple for one week in memory of lives we have lost to overdoses and for the ones still fighting addiction. You can turn your FB page purple, paint your nails purple, dress in purple, hang a purple ribbon or any other idea you have. You may post pictures and share your story too. You never know who you could help by speaking out.

We need to bring awareness to what drugs are doing to our loved ones, our communities and our world. No one is immune. The heroin epidemic has claimed more lives than you realise. The availability and low-cost make it easy to use. The devils, I mean dealers, pray on middle school aged children with "free" heroin and show them how to shoot up because they know they will soon be addicted and be a good customer. They hang out en-masse in front of treatment facilities and do the exact same thing, offer "free" heroine to people struggling to recover.

There is no such thing as 'free' heroine, once you try it you are no longer free. Your life and families lives get turned upside down, always waiting for the worst and often finding it. Finding your child blue, YES, this can happen to you.

There are not nearly enough treatment facilities to manage this epidemic. When an addict agrees to get help, it is a very short window of hope. Calling a treatment center and being given an appointment a week away is contributing to deaths, it is a death sentence. Calling 5 places and not getting treatment is a sin. We need detox facilities open all over 24/7 where immediate help is available.

Addicts are not low life criminals. They are your neighbors, your family, your friends and this has to be brought out in the open or the deaths will continue. Suffolk County has been hit exceptionally hard with 189 deaths due to overdose recently.

What are YOU going to do about it. Ask yourself if you can just stand by and pretend it is not reality. Do something before addiction touches your life and your community. Call the police, they know that this is going on. They need to become more proactive at getting the dealers off the streets, away from our schools and rehabilitation facilities

We need to speak up and demand help.Write to your politicians, speak out to the news, make a stink that cannot be ignored.

Please.