HYANNIS – A new committee in Barnstable that was formed to address the issues from illegal drug use held its first organizational meeting last week.
The Committee to Analyze the Impact of Illegal Drugs on the Barnstable Community has been charged with understanding the financial impacts of drugs on the community and finding solutions.
The committee will collaborate with town and state officials, first responders and human services agencies.
“I think the take away from that meeting was that we need to work on education and prevention,” said Jessica Rapp Grassetti, the president of the Barnstable Town Council.
Rapp Grassetti said the key to prevention is getting to the younger children.
Town Councilor Sara Cushing was elected the chair of the subcommittee and Town Councilor Paul Hebert was elected as the vice chair.
Other town councilors appointed to the subcommittee include Will Crocker, John Flores and Eric Steinhilber.
“The key to this is prevention,” Rapp Grassetti said. “A lot of money has been spent on the treatment side of this and preventing overdoses with narcan.”
She said the focus needs to be finding ways to keep members from the community from starting drug use.
The next meeting of the committee will be on Monday, March 14 at 5:30 p.m.
Representatives from all of the town’s fire districts will be on hand to discuss how much has been spent on the epidemic.
School officials will also talk about the drug prevention and education programs already being utilized throughout the school system.
By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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