Every day I receive emails from families losing their children and loved ones to heroin. 

Marianne Skolek Global News Centre

(MYRTLE BEACH)  In April 2002, my daughter Jill was killed by prescribed OxyContin and Purdue Pharma’s marketing lies.  I set out to learn everything I could about Purdue Pharma to expose their lies.  If you follow my articles about the corruption of the FDA and the Purdue Pharmas in Salem-News.com and Globalnewscentre.com you will see that I have accomplished those goals.  

Group fighting narcotic epidemic:  Readington woman wants to help stop deaths from overdoses.

READINGTON  One article about heroin in Hunterdon County became two, and then three and four and then five.

Pretty soon, Marianne Skolek of the Whitehouse Station section became shaken by what she was reading.

Skolek, who has a teenage son, said she saw drugs moving into her county like a silent plague - imperceptible until it strikes.

“It’s in our back yard and that’s what got me very concerned because there’s no way of telling a kid is on it,” she said.  “I started reading too much in Hunterdon County that got me concerned.”

There’s good reason for Soklek to worry.  Deaths resulting from drug overdoses have been on the rise, authorities said.  In 2000, one person died from an overdose; six months into 2001, six people died, and 90 percent of those deaths involved heroid, Lt. Ken Harding of the narcotics unit of the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office said.

With outrage and concern as her motivators, Skolek began investigating what leads children to take heroin.  In March she started a group, “The New Best Friend,” hoping to copy the success of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Although she avoids calling it a support group, Skolek and other mothers talk about the evis of heroin and how they can better assert themselves before another child’s name shows up in a story about a heroin overdose.

Twelve mothers, including one whose child died from an overdose, are regular members.  The women are from Somerset and Hunterdon C0unties.  While the group moves through its infancy, the mothers stay in touch over the phone.

“If mothers could do so much in the country with MADD, mothers should be able to band together and do something about the heroin epidemic,” Skolek said.

Counselors said they have seen a steady increase in teen-agers coming for help.  Sue Morrow, the director of the Hunterdon Drug Awareness Program, said heroin use had been chronic in the state, nut not so in Hunterdon County.  Ten years ago, during the crack epidemic, more and more people took heroin to counterbalance the high they were getting off crack.

Of late, she has seen teen-agers, fitting no particular stereotype, coming through her doors.  Some come from two parent families and are athletes and good students. she pointed to an “upsurge in heroin use in our county.”

One alarming sign was the increased demand for drug counseling services.  She said 60 people are on a waiting list to enter the program; in October, there were none.

The Flemington-based group offers a variety of treatment and prevention programs.

Signs of drug use among children are never clear-cut.  Still, the Hunterdon Drug Awareness Program said 21 signs for parents to monitor include bloodshot eyes, needle tracks on their child’s body, a change in friends and financial problems - either borrowing money or having a “sudden excess” of it.

Part of Skolek’s goal is to make parents see that the drug problem is not far away but within their communities.  “The New Best Friend” is an ironic title.  Skolek sais, because it refers not to the best friend a child is going off with but heroin.  She calls pushers who entice teen-agers at parties “Jerry and Maria.”  She created the names to correspond to people who live not in inner city, but within a child’s community and lure him or her into a life of heroin.

In talking with parents of heroin users, Skokel said she ahs found that most parents are apathetic.  Parents often do not check out who their children’s friends are or what occurs at a sleepover.

Authorities said teens go out of Hunterdon COunty to buy drugs.  Harding said favorite locales are Newark, Philadelphia and Allentown, Pa.

But Skolek said mothers told her that kids get drugs in Hunterdon County, be it in high school or elsewhere.  Armed with enough money to see a movie, they can buy a bag of heroin, she said.  “Ten dollars can kill a child.”

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Global News Centre’s Marianne Skolek, is an Investigative Reporter who focuses on the Prescription Opioid/Heroin Epidemic in the U.S. and Canada. In particular, Marianne has covered the criminal marketing of OxyContin going back to 1999 and continuing to the present.

In 2002, Marianne lost her daughter, Jill to prescribed OxyContin which her physician referred to as “mobility in a bottle.” It was, in fact, death in a bottle. After doing extensive research on the maker of OxyContin, Purdue Pharma, Marianne began working with the Department of Justice in Virginia in their criminal investigation into Purdue Pharma and in July 2007 was asked by the U.S. Attorney John Brownlee prosecuting the case to testify against the three CEO’s of Purdue Pharma, Michael Friedman, Paul Goldenheim, MD and Howard Udell, Chief Counsel. The CEO’s pleaded guilty to misleading the medical profession about the dangers of OxyContin. Marianne also testified against Purdue Pharma at a Judiciary Hearing of the U.S. Senate in July 2007.

In addition, a dangerous and highly addictive opioid named Zohydro has been approved by the FDA against their Advisory Committee’s advice and Marianne continues to alert Attorneys General, Senators and Congressmen as to the FDA’s irresponsibility in the out of control prescription opioid/heroin epidemic killing and addicting in the tens of thousands each year. Zohydro has been referred to as “heroin in a capsule” and its lowest dosage (10mg) contains twice as much hydrocodone as found in a Vicodin pill. The highest single dose of Zohydro contains as much hydrocodone as 5 to 10 tablets of Vicodin or Lortab. Zohydro mixed with alcohol can be fatal and has no abuse deterrent built in which will make it easy to crush and deliver a fatal dose of the opioid.

Currently Marianne has been instrumental in calling for the termination of Margaret Hamburg, MD, Commissioner of the FDA as well as Bob A. Rappaport, MD and Douglas Throckmorton, MD for their lack of commitment to safeguarding the American public against the prescription opioid/heroin epidemic. Marianne’s research, writing and contact with government agencies and attorneys has also exposed the heavily funded pain foundations set up by the pharmaceutical industry and their paid physician spokespersons who convinced the medical boards in 50 states and Canada that dangerous opioids such as OxyContin were less likely to be addictive. These physicians — in particular Scott Fishman, MD, J. David Haddox, DDS, MD, Perry Fine, MD, Lynn R. Webster, MD, Russell Portenoy, MD also downplayed the risks of addictive opioids in books as authors. These books are still available for sale and promoted to the medical profession.

Here are links to Marianne’s involvement in exposing the national conspiracy of the prescription opioid/heroin epidemic, the FDA, the pharmaceutical industry, their pain foundations and paid physician spokespersons.

http://www.salem-news.com/by_author.php?reporter=Marianne%20Skolek

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmPG1VjD61U&list=UUWoHUEr4ZAbQOfIqtOArjgg&index=6&feature=plcp

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=855537227796352&set=vb.658186307531446&type=2&theater