Taking to the streets to fight heroin addiction in Camden

Carolyn Ruggeri went to Camden on Wednesday to help heroin addicts avoid the fate of her daughter, Rose, who died a drug-related death in 2012.

Patty DiRenzo was there for her late son, Sal.

And for Tom Bush, the effort was likewise personal: He's lost three extended family members - all in their 20s - to heroin in recent years.

"We're trying to spread awareness about this epidemic," Bryan J. Bush, assistant business manager of Sheet Metal Workers Local 19, told about 50 law enforcement officers, union members, and other volunteers in front of Camden County police headquarters.

Heroin overdose deaths in Camden County totaled 93 in 2014, a per capita rate eight times that of the nation, according to a report issued in July by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As of Nov. 9, the total number of overdoses (most nonfatal) reported in the county this year stood at 555, compared with 364 at the same point last year.

"The heroin and opiate epidemic is a nondiscriminatory scourge on every neighborhood in Camden County," said county spokesman Dan Keashen, who participated in the event. "It is imperative [that we] help stem the tide of death and destruction."

"I've lost nieces," said Bryan Bush, who is Tom Bush's cousin. "One of our members' sons overdosed in Camden. It hits home."

Volunteers spent about 90 minutes Wednesday providing information about overdose prevention and treatment programs to pedestrians and businesses along seven blocks of Broadway between Federal and Line Streets. The outreach was organized by the police and the county's Addiction Awareness Task Force.

The materials urged people who witness an overdose not to fear calling 911, given the protections provided by the state's 2013 Good Samaritan law. Information about the overdose-fighting drug known as Narcan also was offered.

"I'll put it right here," said Jose Placencia, owner of Los Amigos Grocery Two on the 500 block of Broadway, accepting an informational placard from Police Capt. Gabriel Camacho. "I believe [in] anything done for the community."

Once a regional shopping and entertainment destination, Broadway is often frequented by suburban addicts who take public transit into the city and disembark at the Walter Rand Transportation Center.

The street also holds magnificent new facilities - the KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy, the Cooper Medical School of Rowan University - and several vintage buildings under renovation.

But the carcass of the once-grand Carnegie library, woebegone vacant lots, and barricaded storefronts seem bleaker than ever.

Desperate-looking people wander everywhere, like the three disheveled dudes anxiously smoking in front of the transportation center, and the pale, frail, and thoroughly streetwise young woman whose plight was so obvious it broke my heart.

But Ruggeri said she thought there were fewer visible heroin users on the street Wednesday than usual. The Atco resident, 51, became familiar with the scene while trying to save her daughter from the streets.

"They must have got the word" about the volunteer effort, she said. "They're all hiding. But later, they'll all be back. That's how they do it."

Addicts often resist help of any kind because "getting clean means changing their whole way of life," noted Tom Bush, who's 43 and lives in Cinnaminson.

"I know a couple addicts who have made it," he said. "But a lot never do."

Rose Ruggeri, who was only 20 when she died, had been in treatment but left the facility early, her mother said.

And DiRenzo's son Sal Marchese, who was found dead of an overdose at 26 in North Camden five years ago, had at one point been clean for three years.

Recovery from a heroin addiction isn't easy, as DiRenzo knows all too well. But as anyone fortunate enough to get - and stay - clean and sober knows, recovery is eminently possible.

"You can just tell from their eyes when they take the information from you, that they need it," said DiRenzo, 55, of Blackwood.

She added that she had just such an experience with "a young man in an Army fatigue jacket" during Wednesday's event.

"I felt like I made a difference for that one person today," DiRenzo said. "That's all that matters."

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