Dentaltown May 2017 - 71

Fialkoff as a keynote speaker at a United Nations event covering education.

O

Opioid abuse. The phrase was hardly in the vocabulary at the
turn of the millennium, but today we read about it daily in the press.
* We're pressed to take a stand by the surgeon general.1
* E-Prescribe took heed and made it a full-court press to
prevent its abuse.
* And an apprehensive American Dental Association has
pressed the emergency button, making opioid/opiate
education a mandatory course for its membership.2
Our country, and the dental industry, is in a crisis of historic
magnitude. Prescription drug abuse is a bona fide epidemic in
the U.S.; four out of every 10 fatal drug overdoses are the result
of prescription painkiller abuse.3 A 2014 study found that 40
percent of dental patients reported some form of nonmedical use
of prescription opioids.4
The drama doesn't end there. In the U.S. "there are indications
of a partial shift in the use of opioids toward heroin use," according
to the most recent World Drug Report of the U.N. Office on
Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The researchers cite an increase in
the number of heroin-related deaths from 5,925 in 2012 to 8,257
in 2013-the highest level in a decade, and one the UNODC says
is on a continuous rise.5
No longer solely a problem of the inner city, heroin's resurgence
in America is now also a suburban and middle-class phenomenon.6
Rather than wallowing in the flood of worsening news, one New
York dentist has come up with a plan to help concerned professionals
do something that can help their practices-and the dental field as
a whole-play a role in the prevention drug addiction.

From left to right: Miss New York 2013 Amanda Mason, Fialkoff, National Latino
Officers Association Executive Director Anthony Miranda, Julio Diaz of the
New York Police Department, David Tidman, Miss New York 2016 Camille Sims
and Mrs. Maria Fialkoff ride the Drug Free World float at the Puerto Rican Day
Parade in New York.

youth-friendly booklets to inner city educators in want of "nothing
but the facts" about drugs that were lurking in the shadows,
the streets and the schoolyards. His fi rst presentation benefited
Bronx preteens at a New York City Department of Youth and
Community Development after-school program. Unsure of the
result, he soon found reason to carry on, thanks to a letter from
a young attendee: "Your speech caused an impact on us, now
we all look at things differently. I apply what I learned in your
workshop to my daily life."
Within two years, Fialkoff 's chapter conducted more than
200 events. Feedback poured in, including a report from a teacher
who, astonished by her youngsters' ongoing dialogue, wrote, "The
participants continued to talk about what they understood from
the presentation for the next couple of days."

Stepping Up
In 2006, alarmed by the destructive path drug abuse was carving
in New York City and its surrounds, Dr. Bernard Fialkoff established
the New York chapter of Foundation for a Drug-Free World, a public
benefit organization that provides youth and adults with factual
information about drugs so they can make informed decisions and
live drug-free. Through a worldwide network of volunteers-and
working with more than 800 police, government and community
partners and alliances-62 million educational booklets have been
distributed, tens of thousands of drug awareness events have been
held, and public service announcements have reached more than
260 million viewers in 123 countries.7
Fialkoff, a Townie since 2011, fi rst embraced the fledgling
"Truth About Drugs" movement by bringing the foundation's

FREE FACTS, circle 6 on card

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