Wyckoff Aims to Combat Drug Use with Heroin-Awareness Calendars

Wyckoff residents will be receiving calendars in the mail - but these aren’t just any calendars.

They are “straight-forward resource guides” aimed at combating heroin abuse called Healthy Families, Drug & Alcohol Resource Guides, and provide dates and Township information, as well as resources and first-person accounts from people once addicted to heroin.

Wyckoff Police Chief Benjamin C. Fox says he believes the calendars are important “only because of what the police department has seen,” noting that heroin use has skyrocketed in the last five years.

“[Heroin] is here in quantities that is staggering to law enforcement,” Chief Fox said.

But how has heroin become a state-wide epidemic?

According to Chief Fox, people experiment with opium-based drugs, like oxycodone and percocets, and become highly addicted. But when they can’t afford the pills, they move to heroin, which is also opium-based and provides the same high ”at a fraction of a cost.”

“[The addiction] is so severe and so extreme that they will do anything to get their fix,” Chief Fox said. “We’ve seen it destroy families in town.”

Wyckoff Municipal Administrator Robert Shannon, Jr. says he hopes that calendar and its purpose “results in healthy families.”

Likewise, Chief Fox says, ”We hope it brings awareness to a major, major problem.”

“We hope that it will serve as a vehicle for parents to have discussions with their children concerning drugs and alcohol,” Shannon said.

“People are dying, crimes are being committed and lives are being ruined,” Chief Fox said.