ST. GEORGE — A new anti-drug initiative on Staten Island aims to prevent cocaine, heroin and pill addictions in middle and high school students before they start, District Attorney Dan Donovan announced Wednesday.
The program, called the "No D Initiative," will educate students from grades 6 to 12 on the dangers of drug use by giving a 35-minute classroom presentation focusing on real-life examples of opioid abuse, the toll it takes on families and penalties for drug-related crimes, Donovan said.
"My staff and I have seen too many young people have contact with the criminal justice system because of drug abuse, or, even worse, overdose as a result of their addictions to lethal narcotics," Donovan said in a statement. "The ‘No D Initiative’ is a great way to be proactive and hopefully prevent deadly drug addiction from ever taking root in our young people."
The program — designed to fit within one school period — will feature two assistant district attorneys with experience prosecuting drug cases showing a PowerPoint presentation and giving a lecture, Donovan said.
The first "No D Initiative" presentation was given to students at the Michael J. Petrides School in late February and included an NYPD officer who talked about a gunpoint robbery committed by a person to fund his drug habit, as well as a teacher who lost friends and family to overdoses, Donovan said.
Tottenville, Susan Wagner and Port Richmond high schools have also signed up with the DA's office to bring the presentations to their schools.
Borough President James Oddo is also planning a program starting with fifth-graders called "Too Good For Drugs," and he assisted Donovan in promoting the "No D Initiative" and reaching out to schools in the borough.
"It is a no-nonsense, common-sense approach to a mounting problem in our borough," Oddo said in a statement. "It has a ‘scared straight’ programmatic feel to it without being too graphic. I think it will be very effective for middle and high school students."
Staten Island has been in the throes of a prescription drug and heroin epidemic, with the rate of overdoses climbing 261 percent from 2005 to 2011, according to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
The rate has dropped slightly since 2012, but an estimated 37 people died from drug-related overdoses in 2013, Donovan has said.
Aside from the "No D Initiative," the NYPD is also planning a pilot program that will make it protocol for officers to call ambulances for intoxicated minors they find on the streets and to have a talk with their parents.
The program, dubbed "Operation Youth First," puts parents in touch with service providers to discuss drug-treatment options to stop addiction as soon as possible, Assistant Chief Edward Delatorre, borough commander for Staten Island, has said.
"When it comes to drug use, it's just like cancer. You catch it early, you hit it hard, and you have the best success," Delatorre said at a Community Board 1 meeting in January. "We're trying to help the parents know what's going on as early as we can."
