{"id":10407,"date":"2017-02-13T11:37:57","date_gmt":"2017-02-13T16:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=10407"},"modified":"2017-02-13T11:39:20","modified_gmt":"2017-02-13T16:39:20","slug":"30-people-sent-to-rehab-during-first-week-of-brick-pd-program-to-avoid-heroin-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2017\/02\/30-people-sent-to-rehab-during-first-week-of-brick-pd-program-to-avoid-heroin-arrest\/","title":{"rendered":"30+ People Sent to Rehab During First Week of Brick PD Program to Avoid Heroin Arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Heroin<\/a>

Heroin (File Photo\/ Dimitris Kalogeropoylos\/ Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

Brick officials say more than 30 people addicted to drugs admitted their problems and agreed to get on the road to recovery during the first week of a program in which addicts can come to the Brick Township police department without threat of arrest<\/a> and ask for help.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, that\u2019s 30 lives saved,\u201d said Brick Mayor John Ducey. \u201cHopefully they\u2019ll get themselves better, get themselves healthy, and go back to being productive citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the program, being piloted in Brick and Manchester, an addicted person can come to the police department one day each week, turn in their substances without the threat of arrest, and ask for help.<\/p>\n

Known as HARP \u00a0\u2013 which stands for Heroin Addiction Response Program \u2013 the initiative has been created through a partnership between the two police departments and the Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Office, as well as Preferred Behavioral Health and Integrity\u00a0House of Toms River. Any person who voluntarily enters the two participating departments\u00a0and requests help with addiction to heroin or opiates \u2013 or any substance \u2013 shall be immediately screened for potential participation in HARP.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The screening is done with care and dignity, said one Brick councilwoman who personally knew the family of one of the program\u2019s participants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis young man was really on his last legs and asked for mercy,\u201d said Councilwoman Marianna Pontoriero. \u201cHis mother had tried to get him inpatient care at least four to five times and they only gave him two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the police department\u2019s program, a 30 day recovery program is provided, for no charge if a person does not have medical insurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could tell that they really wanted this young man to succeed,\u201d Pontoriero said of the Brick officers who took him into the program. \u201cWithin a few hours, he was placed at another facility and he was doing extraordinarily well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Word has gotten out, and it is apparent that more people will be taking advantage of the opportunity to beat addiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we were sitting there doing intake, another person walked in seeking help,\u201d Pontoriero said.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brick officials say more than 30 people addicted to drugs admitted their problems and agreed to get on the road to recovery during the first week of a program in which addicts can come to the Brick Township police department without threat of arrest and ask for help. \u201cHopefully, that\u2019s 30 lives saved,\u201d said Brick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[2650,2759,2699,24,2700,63],"class_list":["post-10407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-fire-courts","tag-addiction","tag-addiction-program","tag-amnesty","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-harp","tag-heroin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/5851768737_8f87134bf2_o.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2HR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}