Group Planning Prescription Drug Abuse Rally

The Prescription Drug Abuse Alliance is planning a community rally to talk drug abuse and related issues.

The rally is planned for 6:30pm April 29 at Pickens High School, according to Dr. Jim Mahanes with the PDDA.

The Prescription Drugs Abuse Alliance is comprised of members of the medical community and law enforcement, who have seen first-hand the damage that prescription drug abuse does in our area.

Dr. Jim Mahanes said that 25 of the 36 accidental deaths that occurred in Pickens County in 2011 were related to prescription drugs.

The alliance started about three years ago as the Narcotics Task Force, “when we realized the demand that was being put on us for prescription narcotics, and the significant number of deaths we were having in Pickens County due to overdose of those medications ” Mahanes said.

The Narcotics Task Force joined up with Baptist Easley and became the Prescription Drugs Abuse Alliance, “to educate our clinicians and other workers in our hospitals about this problem,” Mahanes said.

“And to try to find ways that we may be able to get into the community to broaden the scope of the message that we have about these items that are being prescribed – the good that they can have, but also the harm that they can create,” he said.

“We’ve been looking constantly for a public forum,”  Mahanes said.  “We want to bill this as a community rally.”

The rally’s focus will be on parents and their kids, particularly high schoolers.

“We want the kids to come as well,” Mahanes said. “It’s a pretty big auditorium, I’d like to see it full.”

“Pickens County and Oconee County are ‘red zones’ as far as prescription drugs are concerned,” Mahanes said.

During the rally, a panel will address the audience and talk about the prescription drug abuse problem in Pickens County

Panelists will include Pickens County Coroner Kandy Kelley, Capt. Chad Brooks, narcotics officer with the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office, addiction specialist Dr. Mary Cummings of Clemson.

South Carolina Inspector General Patrick Maley has agreed to attend the rally and will appear on the panel.

Mahanes recently talked the problem with Sen. Larry Martin and Rep. Davey Hiott and they want to attend the rally.

“I want them in the audience,” Mahanes said.

There will be a Q and A held with panelists, “to gain everybody’s perspective on this, to make this as big an educational forum as we possibly can” he said.  “I’m really excited about this.  We’re tired of staying in a room and talking about this to ourselves. Now we get to talk to a lot of other people about it.”

Behavioral Health Services of Pickens County Director Bob Hiott said the effort the PDDA is making is just what the Stepping It Up Coalition was set up for.

The coalition has received a $625,000 Drug-Free Communities grant to help educate the public about drug abuse and eliminate it from our area. The coalition’s focus includes prescription drugs.

The coalition will be helping spread the word on the upcoming rally.