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Isanti County News

Anti-drug coalition to host screening of opiate documentary ‘Chasing the Dragon’

Published January 4, 2017 at 10:40 am

by Austin Gerth

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The recently established Isanti County Substance Abuse Prevention and Recovery Coalition is holding a public screening of “Chasing the Dragon:

The Life of an Opiate Addict,” a documentary about heroin and opiate drug abuse, on Wednesday, Feb. 15. 

The screening will take place in the Richard G. Hardy Performing Arts Center at Cambridge-Isanti High School, and it will be accompanied by a community conversation with a panel of local experts. Refreshments including pizza will be provided starting at 5:30 p.m., with the film following at 6:30 p.m. In addition, parents who attend the event will be able to walk through a mock bedroom where they will be told about signs they can look for in their kids’ rooms if they suspect drug use.

The event is being co-hosted by the Isanti County Community Adolescent Advisory Team.

Deb Natzel, who works as Isanti County Family Services’ Rule 25 coordinator, started the Isanti County Substance Abuse Prevention and Recovery Coalition after attending a conference on opiate addiction at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation.

Prior to the coalition’s formation, Natzel said Isanti County was the only county in the area without something like it. There had been a coalition focused specifically on methamphetamine prevention, but it is no longer in operation.

Natzel does not want the new coalition to become focused solely on one drug, like the meth coalition was, but she said heading off the incoming heroin trend was a motivating factor for forming the coalition.

“‘I would never use needles’ – that used to be the line in the sand,” Natzel said of the heroin and opioid epidemic. “That line has been erased.”

“Chasing the Dragon” was produced by the FBI and the DEA to highlight both prescription drug and heroin abuse. It features interviews with people who have abused the drugs, as well as law enforcement personnel, including FBI Director James Comey and acting DEA Administrator Chuck Rosenberg.

“It’s gritty, it’s real, it’s not warm and fuzzy,” Natzel said of the documentary. “I wouldn’t have super young people in the audience.”

According to Natzel, heroin is becoming a drug trend partly because people aren’t well-informed about it.

“I think that people just don’t know,” she said. “They think that heroin is a big-city thing.”

The Isanti County Substance Abuse Prevention and Recovery Coalition is looking for more involvement, including from grant writers willing to do some pro bono work at first. Their next meeting will take place on Jan. 13, Natzel said.

For more information on the screening of “Chasing the Dragon” or on the Isanti County Substance Abuse Prevention and Recovery Coalition, call 763-689-8141.

The Isanti County Substance Abuse Prevention and Recovery Coalition has recently been formed in Isanti County.

It came after Deb Natzel, an Isanti County Family Services Rule 25 coordinator, decided to attend a professional development conference about opiate addiction this past September after a 24-year-old friend of her son died of a heroin overdose.

“This conference came up,” Natzel said, “and it hit very close to home. ... We are not doing enough.”

She came away from the event knowing that something needed to change in her community that was already facing the problems of drug addiction.

“We can send people to treatment all day long,” Natzel said, “but unless there is more support in this community when they come home, and unless we get more support out there with prevention, especially with the opium issues, we will have more and more people dying.”  

Though there had been a support coalition in the past when the methamphetamine epidemic was at its peak, it faded away when funding ran out. Before the new group was proposed, the county did not have this type of support group working to prevent drug use and to educate the community. “Every other surrounding county has a substance abuse coalition,” Natzel said.   

Because of her experience with Rule 25, which states that to receive public funding for chemical dependency treatment, an individual must have a chemical use assessment conducted by a Rule 25 assessor, Natzel was well-versed in what individual churches and organizations within the community were doing in terms of prevention and recovery. With that knowledge, she invited those many assets to the table to become part of the Isanti County Substance Abuse Prevention and Recovery Coalition.  

What leaders are saying

Those who joined forces come from all sides of the issue with a common goal of educating, preventing and assisting in a successful recovery. The coalition includes representatives from several local schools, law enforcement, many churches, family services, mental health professionals, addiction and recovery specialists, Isanti County Attorney’s office and county officials.  

“The idea behind this was prevention and treatment for those people involved,” said Wayne Seiberlich, an Isanti County Sheriff’s deputy who is a member of the county’s Drug Task Force. “From a task force perspective, how can we be more proactive in preventing it to begin with?”

New Hope Community Church of Cambridge is known for being involved in recovery. Bill Berg, lead pastor, was very interested in the proposed coalition when he received an invitation to join. “Recovery is something we are very passionate about,” Berg said. “That is really why I am here. How can we move this topic forward in the community in both prevention and recovery?”

Brian Larson, Director of Administration and Recovery at New Hope Community Church, is also eager to see what he can contribute to the efforts. “Recovery is where my heart is,” he said. “I am almost 14 years in recovery myself, and I know the struggles.”

Though the coalition is based out of Isanti County, the founders feel it would be more effective if it joined forces with surrounding counties.

Gene Sherrod, Pastor of the Open Arms Church in Grasston, is one of those neighbors. “My goal is to learn,” he said. But he also wants to get to the root of the problem in those suffering from addiction.

“Often people are looking for a behavior modification,” Sherrod said, “where I am looking for a heart change.” He hopes his involvement with the coalition will help him be more prepared to recognize  the signs of addiction so he can sooner get to the heart of the issue. He said he hopes to see an end to the chaos, destruction, personal shame and guilt that addiction brings.  

“I have a big interest this coalition,” said Robin Ringer, manager of Dellwood Recovery Center in Cambridge. She said she has spent the last 25 years watching many recovery success stories, but also too much loss where prevention could have saved a life or a family. She wants to see the community work together and have a change in the mindset of stereotyping those suffering from addiction.

“There is a stigma around addiction,” she said. “Addiction doesn’t discriminate.”  

When Michelle Liska, a Rule 25 Assessor with Isanti County Family Services, heard of Natzel’s idea to form the coalition she said she immediately asked to help in its development.

“We have chemical abuse in our county,” Liska said, “and we don’t have a lot of resources for prevention, for recovery and or any kind of help for families.”

Liska said one of the program’s goals is to see a reduction of first-time adolescent users. “We want to see kids being able to say no and feel confident in saying no,” she said.  

One of the toughest parts of Liska’s career with the Isanti County Family Services has been seeing families come full circle in the problem with drug use and addiction. “We once were working with moms,” she said, “and now we are working with (their) kids because they think it is normal.” One of the missions of the coalition will be to promote more sober community events to show even the tiniest of spectators that an event can be fun without the presence of alcohol or drugs.

Informational film to be shown  

One of the first actions the coalition is taking is to hold a public screening of the documentary “Chasing the Dragon: The Life of an Opiate Addict.” The film was created and directed by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration to paint an honest picture of opiate and heroin addiction’s consequences (for mature audiences).  

The screening will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 15, at the Richard G. Hardy Performing Arts Center at Cambridge-Isanti High School.  Free pizza will be served at 5:30 p.m., the short film at 6:30 p.m., followed at 7:30 p.m. by a question and answer time with an expert panel and audience discussion.

The public will also get to participate in an interactive mock walk-through of a teenager’s bedroom with discussion as to what signs of drug use to look for as a parent.  

The newly formed coalition does not have designated funding and is looking for grant writers interested in doing pro bono work to help build their resources.

For more information on the coalition, the screening of the movie or grant writing opportunities visit icsaparc.wixsite.com/coalition, visit the Facebook page “Isanti County Substance Abuse Prevention and Recovery Coalition” or call Deb Natzel at (763) 689-8141.  

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