Homewood mayor joins Freedom from Addiction Coalition

Mayor Scott McBrayer is joining the mayors of three other Over the Mountain communities in a new approach to reducing opioid abuse and overdose.

Vestavia Hills Mayor Ashley Curry recently created the Freedom from Addiction Coalition along with McBrayer, Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato and Mountain Brook Mayor Stewart Welch. As a former agent in the FBI, Curry said he saw first-hand how drug addiction can destroy a life and the lives of those close to that individual. 

“I saw that you’ve got to do more than just the law enforcement side,” Curry said, noting that law enforcement is certainly still important.

Over the first year of his term as mayor, Curry said he has been aghast at the scope and impact that opioid addiction has.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” he said. “It’s staggering.”

In Homewood, Fire Marshal Nick Hill said that in 2017, the fire department responded to 34 calls where the primary impression of first responders was opioid abuse. Of those calls, naloxone — an opioid overdose reversal drug, also called Narcan — was administered 26 times.

According to data provided by the fire and police departments, emergency medical services were provided for 2,524 calls last year. These included the 34 opioid abuse calls, seven sedative and anti-anxiety drug abuse calls, six stimulant abuse calls and five antidepressant calls. 

The fire department recorded several types of “primary impressions,” or reasons for the medical treatment, that resulted in naloxone use, including altered mental state, respiratory distress or failure, cardiac arrest or dysrhythmia, stimulant abuse, non-epileptic seizures, stroke and sepsis or septicemia.

In 2017, there were 269 deaths across Jefferson County due to drug overdoses, including seven in Homewood.

Curry said the numbers in the county and in his own city, which administered naloxone 34 times last year, are enough that he felt he needed to do something.

“As far as I’m concerned, it certainly got my attention. I just don’t think the public is aware of the extent of this problem,” he said.

Curry worked with an existing Vestavia Hills anti-opioid abuse organization, Help the Hills, to create the Freedom from Addiction Coalition. While Help the Hills is focused toward high school students and their parents, the Coalition will be aimed at adults.

The Coalition held its first event, a Community Awareness Breakfast, on March 13. The event included local resources for treating and preventing addiction, as well as speakers Mike and Deborah Bailey, who lost their 20-year-old daughter Ashlynn to an overdose in 2016. 

This first Coalition event was met with a standing room-only crowd, and the city of Mountain Brook intends to host a similar breakfast June 12. McBrayer said Homewood will also host an event in the future, though that date has not been selected.

Curry said he wants to combine the Coalition’s awareness efforts with more resources and city protocols to help addicts who reach out for assistance in overcoming their addiction.

Learn more about local efforts to prevent opioid abuse at addictionpreventioncoalition.org.