News Gathering
Opioid epidemic: While country struggles, Neshaminy family recovers
Neshaminy co-curriculars: varied finances among sports teams, clubs
Democratic Party faces functional issues following convention
About:
As the death toll rose in relation to opioid use, my staff and I decided that we needed to cover the situation. I contacted the mother of a friend of mine for an interview, whose husband had died of an opioid overdose a few years prior, for an interview in addition to seeking out responses from local police and medical professionals. This piece was originally published on Feb. 14, 2018. Our source remained anonymous out of fear that Child Protective Services might take her youngest daughter because the source and her husband had once been herion addicts, and to protect her other daughter from harassment, as she still attends the high school.
“I am in no way a good pitcher, but I can throw a rock in any direction and hit a house that has heroin in it.”
Jessica thought about these words, sprung from the mouth of a Middletown Township police officer in an attempt to comfort her following her husband’s death, as she picked up her four-year-old daughter’s toys, strewn across the floor of her living room. Although this occured in 2014 in many communities across the country, this police officer’s words still ring true.
Jessica, mother of four, was 35 when she had a stroke, leading to a prescription of percocet by her pain specialist. Her husband and their childhood friend partook in her prescriptions with her, that is, until they ran out.
“[Unprescribed pills get] very expensive very fast,” said Jessica in an interview with the Playwickian last winter. “Heroin is a lot cheaper, it's a lot easier to obtain... I could take five 30 milligram percocet and function. That’s 180 bucks, where I could take two bags of heroin… and get the same. And 30 bucks versus 180 bucks, you’re gonna go for 30 bucks without a doubt.” In 2012, 259 million prescriptions were written for opioid-based medication, enough for every single adult in the United States to have their own bottle of pills, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
For many, addiction to heroin and other opioid drugs develops in the same way that it did for Jessica and her family, via the prescription of opioid painkillers, according to Narcotics Anonymous. Pennsylvania, due to the struggles of its residents with such issues, has earned its place as the state among the highest rate of opioid overdoses in the country, in a nation which, according to the CDC, has seen overdose deaths more than triple from 1990 to 2015. Four of five new heroin users had previously misused prescription painkillers, as found in studies by the CDC.
Although the use of the drug Narcan by emergency crews and police officers has saved many lives from overdoses due to opioid use, such was rarely available at the time of the death of Jessica’s husband. In his case, Narcan would have been ineffective due to the extended period of time between his overdose, which occurred shortly after wishing his second-youngest daughter a good day at school as she left for her bus, and when he was found by his wife on their bathroom floor.
“He was without oxygen for about 35 minutes, at least, before I found him,and brain death occurs after four,” said Jessica. “For 31 minutes [first responders] did CPR on the floor and he retained a heartbeat but by then his brain was already gone,” Jessica’s second-oldest daughter was also in the house at the time.
The death of Jessica’s husband occurred during a time in which his regular supplier of heroin was in jail, and as a result, he was forced to seek out a new heroin dealer. Although this was his second time receiving heroin from this new supplier, since it occurred during the period of time in which fentanyl-- an extremely potent and deadly opioid-- was first seen laced into heroin in the area-- originally covered by the Courier Times less than a week after Jessica’s husband became brain dead-- it may be likely that fentanyl was involved in his overdose, as an experienced user of the drug by this time, Jessica’s husband was familiar with the proper proportions for regular use.
Jessica met her husband in eighth grade through mutual friends at their high school in New Jersey. Although they had just a friendship in school, when they met again by chance in a local bar in the spring of 1997, after the end of Jessica’s first marriage, they fell for each other and began dating after just four days. They were engaged by the end of that summer.
“He was my first addiction…,” Jessica explained. “I would still get butterflies when I would hear the car pull in the driveway, [even when we were already married]..every person has their own scent but for me, personally, his scent was safety...I would just stick my head up under his shirt, just to be enveloped in [the smell of] safety was better than going to the moon,” she went on.
“We always slept holding some part of eachother. Either our feet were entwined, our hands were entwined, or we were spooning. That’s how I slept for 18 years and I still search for his hand in bed. I did two days ago, subconsciously just kept reaching for [him].”
Jessica’s youngest daughter, now eight, recalls apple picking and cartoon watching sessions with her father fondly. Jessica’s second-youngest daughter is currently completing her senior year of High School, though she no longer lives with Jessica.
For children like Jessica’s daughters Middletown Police Chief, Joseph Bartorilla, believes that schools should educate students on the effects of drugs like heroin on people and communities. “School is such a huge part of a developing child’s life, and those years are where the foundation is built for all future decisions,” said Bartorilla. “ There are so many great and diverse programs available for schools and school districts to take advantage of.”
Bartorilla went on to describe programs that he believes would help students to understand drug use. “There is always the DARE program, which has become much more progressive and has changed its delivery in recent years to better reach elementary and middle school students,” says Bartorilla. “There are also several other programs available as well. Pennsylvania has an excellent program called TEAM (Teaching, Educating, and Mentoring) which focuses on building good life skills for students, and making good, informed choices and decisions. These types of programs are much better than a ‘just say no to drugs’ program.”
Jessica’s two oldest daughters, now in their 20s, still suffer from opioid addiction, fueling their use through employment as exotic dancers, ignoring their mother’s turn away from drug use following her husband’s death and her encouragement for them to do the same.
Bartorilla suggests mothers like Jessica who are attempting to turn family members away from opioid use attend seminars and information session on the subject, saying that “...many of these sessions train the attendees in how to administer Narcan and provide [family members] with the free [sic] dose of Narcan.”
In addition to this Bartorilla added that “the Bucks County Drug and Alcohol commission is an excellent organization that has done its best to be proactive about the opioid addiction crisis. Their executive director, Diane Rosati, is a great advocate for those needing treatment for their addiction...,” in an attempt to provide resources to those attempting to fight addiction.
Despite the commonality of opioid use in the United States, stigma still remains, making life for those who have lost loved ones or struggle with addiction themselves even harder. The 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 21.5 Americans above age 12 had substance abuse problems in the year prior but only 2.5 million received treatment for such as a result of stigma.
“...the stigma still, to this day, follows the ‘he’s an addict.’ Everything after that word [, addict ,] doesn’t exist. It just falls off, it’s just ‘he’s an addict’. It doesn’t matter if it’s crack cocaine or heroin or ecstasy or, it doesn't matter it is everything after that word, it just, it falls off. No one hears anything else... It’s that word that holds so much power to everyone else who is not [addicted] and it holds you captive forever, no matter what you do, no matter how much progress you make everyone always goes back to ‘oh well, she’s an addict.’... It doesn’t matter what you’ve accomplished or what you've been through or what you've seen, it is [just] that six letter word. It defines you, it is your defining and you can't get out of it you can't get above it you can't get under it you can’t get out…,” said Jessica.
She went on to explain how she had lost many friends as a result of the circumstances of her husband’s death, noting a break in one 30 year long bond as resulting from both stigma and misunderstanding.
“[My friend,] she doesn't get it, she doesn’t come from a family of addiction. She thinks I’m a bad mother. I make mistakes, I’m not great, I didn't have a great person to learn from, but I never gave up on my kids,” said Jessica, noting that her kids likely aren’t able to remember many of the sacrifices she made for them due to both their young age at the time and later drug use.
“If it was a car accident, I’d still have all my friends,” said Jessica, commenting that only one person, in the months following her husband’s death, brought dinner to her home, as is often custom after a death of a friend or neighbor.
Beyond the social consequences of being labeled an addict and of having a loved one die of addiction, Jessica and her family likely would still have Jessica’s husband as a living member if it had not been for the stigma surrounding drug addiction.
“He actually...did the intake interview with Livengrin [, a Bensalem rehabilitation center,] on Wednesday and they had a bed available and he could’ve checked in. He came home, we all discussed it, but [our second youngest daughter]’s birthday was Friday and his parents were coming on Sunday. He wouldn’t have been home in time for his parents,” said Jessica.
She expressed that her husband was a “very proud” person who strived to please his parents, despite their preference for his sister and perceived view of him as “second rate” compared to her. He hid his addiction from them, and continued to do so in his decision to put off rehabilitation until after their visit.
This decision, following his discussion with his family proved fatal, as he was found “dead 12 hours later”.
As a result of the timing of these events, Jessica’s second-youngest daughter has developed a sense of guilt for her father’s death. “She felt guilty that he didn’t go to rehab when he did on that Wednesday because of her birthday,” said Jessica, noting the misunderstanding. “It had nothing to do with her birthday,” she said, adding that the only reason he did not enter rehabilitation on that Wednesday was for the sake of his parents’ view of him.
Despite this, Jessica’s husband’s family blames her for his passing. Jessica has recently moved out-of-state with her youngest daughter to be with friends and family, although she admits this was not in her plans for the future.
“When [my husband] died, my future, as I knew it, died with him. I’ve buried children, I buried my daughter, I lost my son [to adoption], the only son I’ve ever had-- and this was worse. This was so much worse…,” concluded Jessica.
About:
Following a notable drop of funding for the newspaper, I became curious as to whether other clubs and organizations at the school were seeing the same disparities. I filed Right-to-Know requests with the school district asking for funding amounts for sports and clubs for the previous few years, but as they only provided the information for the sports, I had to contact and interview advisors of clubs to get the information for their organizations individually. Large disparities were found between different sports, unrelated to equipment costs, and while some clubs were only seeing one or two hundred dollars cut from their budgets each year, some (like the newspaper) were seeing thousands cut each year. This article was originally published in October of 2015. It was received very positively by those involved in the music and publication related organizations of our school ( choir, marching band, literary magazine, ect.) which faced the greatest declines in their budgets but negatively by those involved with organizations like football, which received the highest funding. It was never clear why these organizations were having their funding stripped, as the income of the school had steadily risen with the population of the district, despite stagnant tax rates, but many of the more radical cuts were reversed following this article's release.
As some organizations within Neshaminy High School, such as the Marching Band and Newspaper, have faced significant budget cuts in the last few years, it has come to question whether such cuts are in proportion to those by which Neshaminy athletic organizations have been affected.
“…if we include our invitational entrance fees and busing, I’m sure about half of our total is used. Honestly, I didn’t know how much [funding] we actually receive because anything I ask for is always taken care of. And I don’t mean that in a snotty way…,” said Neshaminy Girls’ Cross Country Coach, Staci Speece, said in an email-based interview this summer .
Neshaminy’s Varsity Girls’ Cross Country team received $5,477 in funding for their 2012-2013 season, and $5,809 for their 2013-2014 season, according to Neshaminy school District records obtained through a Right to Know Request filed in July. Although the request asked for both the funding of sports, and clubs, only that of sports was provided. No explanation was set forth as to why.
The Neshaminy Varsity Football team received a grand total of $73,244 for their 2012-2013 season. That is $67,767 more than what Speece’s team received the same year.
With football receiving $60,262 in 2013-2014, they’re the most highly funded sport in the entire district, with more than half of that funding going towards coach salaries.
Head Coach, Steve Wilmont, was not present as coach when the 2015-2016 football budget was dictated, as he was promoted after the budget was created.
Varsity Wrestling receives the next highest funding ($20,269), although it is less than half of what football receives, followed by baseball ($17,811), girl’s soccer ($16,961) and boy’s soccer ($16,109).
Looking at Varsity teams only, the lowest funded sports are Boys’ Tennis ($5,401), Boys’ Golf($5,602), and Boys’ Cross Country ($5,028). The above numbers are from the 2012-2013 season.
Although it is impossible to find the rates of funding for clubs, seeing as that information was left out of Neshaminy’s response to the aforementioned Right to Know request, some information on the matter can be found through interviewing the advisers of co curriculars.
“Both our curricular and co curricular budgets have been kind of decreasing over the last four or five years, consistently,” said Marching Band Conductor, Michael Lipton, in an interview on Aug. 17.
The Neshaminy Marching Band consists of over 225 members, and receives no funding from admission charged at the Neshaminy football games that they perform at.
Neshaminy’s school newspaper budget has been cut $2,000 this year from the 2014-2015 budget, and was cut $1,200 the year before, according to the Courier Times.
The award-winning publication will need to fundraise over $1200 if they are to print their usual seven issues this school year.
These cuts bring to question how the distribution of funds is dictated within Neshaminy School District.
The funding available to Neshaminy School District had steadily increased since the 2010-2011 school year. There has been a $38,869,477 fund balance increase from our 2010 budget of $169,281,116, bringing the 2015-2016 budget to a total of $208,150,593.
“The board really does not get involved with this kind of matter,” School Board and community member, Mark Shubin, commented.
“Ultimately these decision are made by the Administration, particularly the building Principal and the Athletic Director. I would suggest that you ask them how they make these decisions,”
Principal Robert McGee has refrained from commenting on this matter. It is McGee and Neshaminy’s Athletic Director and Vice Principal, Tom Magdelinskas, that decide the budgets for co curricular activities each year.
“[I am the] Assistant principal and athletic director; it is a dual role… Every district does it a little bit different, some people have an exclusive athletic director, some people have a coach take responsibility for that…” Magdelinskas said.
Confirming that he does, in fact, watch over non-athletic extracurricular activities, he added that he saw no conflict of interests in working with both clubs and sports.
About:
The Democratic National Convention offered an opportunity for local scholastic papers like my own to attend, with all of the same privileges as professional press. After a long day on the trade floor-- as my advisor, a fellow editor and myself sat in the large stadium that would soon announce Hillary Clinton's nomination-- I began to notice the confiscation of pro-Bernie Sanders signs and many people leaving far before the end of the event. I took out my recorder and went into the hallways to interview those who were leaving about their dissatisfaction, and those who were staying about their opinions regarding the exit of Bernie supporters. I spoke with many delegates and super-delegates alike to build my story, in addition to referencing aspects of the campaigns and primaries that had become issues at the time. This story was not published until September of 2016 due to a strict prior review process.
At the Democratic Convention this July, history was made when hundreds of the supporters and delegates of Senator Bernie Sanders staged a walkout in protest of the treatment of the Sanders campaign and its affiliates by the Democratic Party.
Despite the ongoing theme of party unionization, reports of the confiscation of signs that favored Sanders and his policies, such as abandonment of the Trans Pacific Partnership, surfaced throughout the convention in addition to those associated with the Sanders campaign, who were missing credentials, as well as accusations of the implementation of agitators posing as Sanders supporters on the convention floor.
“We’re still behind him because of the issues he was pushing forward, and I know he tried his best to make sure, even though he’s not the nominee, that his issues were being heard,” said Sanders delegate and Florida resident, Gillian Edwards Brown, in an interview with The Playwickian during the walkout that has now been coined on social media as “Demexit.”
Bernie supporters protested inside of the Democratic Convention even before the nomination was announced. Photo/Grace Marion
Although approximately 90 percent of Sanders’ supporters will be voting for the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in November, according to several surveys by Pew throughout the year, many Sanders supporters plan to continue fighting for the change that his campaign promised to bring about.
“It’s our job to make sure that we don’t keep quiet, make sure that we push, and we make sure that his issues are not forgotten… That’s what the people want, that’s what we need, and we need to make sure that this is something that we hold them accountable for. His campaign was the spark that ignited an inferno that’s been brewing for a long time. He came out and he burst it wide open…but he was just the vessel, because the movement is beyond him now, it’s bigger than that. We have to give him homage for what he did, but eventually it’s our collective efforts that need to push it forward and keep to momentum going,” Brown continued.
Sanders’ supporters do not stand alone in their thirst for a continuance of the political revolution that he began. He and his staff launched a campaign entitled “Our Revolution” in late August issuing seven ballot initiatives and endorsing candidates across the country for positions for everything from senate to school board that mirror the ideals of the Sanders’ campaign.
Regardless of this ongoing political division within the masses of the Democratic Party, many of those who are branching off under Sanders still see Clinton as their knight in shining armor in comparison to the popular presidential alternative, Donald Trump.
“There is no starker contrast between two candidates that we’ve seen in our history so we as a people in this country are going to have to make a decision as to which direction we are going to go. And are we going to go the direction that Trump talks about that he’s going to take us or do we want to go the direction that Hillary Clinton wants to take us. It is not just metaphorically but literally a fork in the road that will take us to two totally different universes so that’s the decision we have to make. It’s not about how you feel about student loan debt or if you think we should support NATO or build a wall. It’s so much bigger than that. It’s what philosophical pathway are we going to go down as a nation,” said Hillary delegate and Oklahoma Senator Kay Floyd of District 46.
Clinton and Sanders fanatics alike have a myriad of fears regarding a Trump presidency: mass deportations, destruction of religious freedoms, pro-Russian biases, reduction of gun control, and arrests made on the grounds of reproductive decisions.
Nancy Pelosi, among others, spoke at the women’s caucus at the DNC, addressing both women’s and civil rights in general.
Photo/Grace Marion
“It [the punishment of women who chose to undergo abortion] is the natural extension of the policy of abortion being wrong. When Trump said that women should go to jail for abortions, he was speaking of a logical, natural progression from if this shouldn’t happen and it does the people should be punished. So we need to just get it out of our heads that it’s anybody’s problem what the women and the man who is supporting her for whatever reason or—let’s just put it this way, when it’s as hard to get a gun and ammunition as it is to get an abortion, I will be happy,” said Indiana Sanders delegate Sue Spicer.
Trump’s campaign website promises a wall built on the United States’ southern border, paid for by Mexico; an extreme decrease in taxation and a simplification of tax code; healthcare reform in the form of the removal of the Affordable Care Act from American law; stronger trade ties with China; a reform of the medical system in place for veterans; and a staunch defense of second amendment rights. Trump’s speeches often reach far beyond these promises a few of which—reform of the medical care system for veterans, for example—most Democrats and moderates do not oppose.
Some Democrats are beginning to see the Trump campaign, or what the Republican nominee has tagged onto his campaign, as an effective tool in uniting the country politically, whether it is for or against him, in the long run.
“[Bernie supporters are] good Democrats and they know what this country has to offer and they reject the racism, the xenophobia, the narcissism, the sociopathology of Donald Trump, which is a good thing—and yes I do think that there is a not very public, but very significant number of conservatives and Republicans who are frightened to death by Donald Trump and rightfully so, and will vote for [Clinton] in November,” said Clinton delegate and minor Massachusetts politician, Andrea Cabral.
In addition to the policy-based contrast from the Republican nominee that Clinton offers, her supporters often point to her lengthy political resume to build her viability as a candidate.
“Hillary Clinton offers us experience, insight that really, as President Obama said, no presidential candidate has ever had before. And on issues such as student debt and access to college, the environment and climate change and immigration reform, we really need her presence there,” said Texas house member and Clinton super-delegate, Lloyd Doggett, in an interview with The Playwickian at the convention.
Bill Clinton, ex-president and husband to current Democratic Nominee Hillary Clinton, spoke in place of his wife at the Democratic Convention on July 26.
Photo/Grace Marion
Clinton served as secretary of state under President Obama, U.S. Senator to New York, first lady of both the United States and Arkansas, a practicing lawyer, a law professor, and an activist, according to her campaign website. Born in 1947 into a Republican family, she attended Wellesley College after completing high school and then enrolled in Yale law school, where she met her husband and was one of only 27 women in her graduating class. Later, she served as a lawyer for the congressional committee which investigated President Nixon.
One delegate at the convention, Patricia Doss, defended the point that Clinton likely would’ve been in office already if she had gotten over her conservative past, and hadn’t run against Obama.
“I think that if she hadn’t run up against one of the greatest politicians, Barack Obama, who I supported 8 years ago, that she would’ve been president eight years ago. But Barack Obama is a phenom and she also had to get past her Iraq war vote. That’s why I didn’t vote for her eight years ago. She had to prove that she wouldn’t be sending our troops all over the Middle East, and she proved that as secretary of state,” said Doss, Clinton delegate of Missouri.
As nine out of 10 Sanders supporters have now pledged their November votes for Clinton, it’s no surprise that Clinton and Sanders lovers alike believe she will carry through with the policy adaptations she has brought over from the Sanders campaign.
“I am very confident that the soon to be president Clinton will adopt, maintain, and articulate as well as implement the various activities that we want to have happen for our country. I feel secure in that because now we have a motivated voting base where we’re going to get a full, active Senate, House of Representatives, a strong set of new judges. Our country is going to move in a democratic way and we’re going to be able to work across the aisle,” said Texas Sanders delegate Timothy Butts.
As the country inches closer to the election, both Clinton and Trump are facing harsher challenges than they did in their primary runs. The state of Clinton’s health has come into question by some members of the public, and her previous use of a private email server during her stay as Secretary of State under President Obama is also mentioned frequently by her opposition. Trump, on the other hand, has made what many are calling a turn from his previous policy positions—his tax plans are now more aimed at appealing to working class families, and under his newest campaign adviser he has avoided making as many controversial statements as he once had.
