Heroin Takes Another Saratoga Life

to the site, “Opioids include her-oin and prescription pain pills like morphine, codeine, oxycodone, methadone and Vicodin. When a person is overdosing on an opioid, breathing can slow down or stop and it can be very hard to wake them from this state. Narcan is a prescription medicine that blocks the effects of opioids and reverses an overdose.”

“Sadly, we have been experi-encing approximately 4 to 6 heroin-related overdose deaths per year for the past couple of years. We have another 20 or so responses to over-dose situations that require transport to the hospital,” said Saratoga Springs Police Chief Gregory Veitch.

Nationally, heroin-related over-dose deaths almost quadrupled between 2002 and 2013, according to the National Conference of State Legislators, and drug overdoses kill more Americans than car accidents each year.

This kind of nightmare is all too familiar for the Scheidt family, who would have celebrated their daugh-ter’s 32nd birthday on Friday, April 8.

“It [Friday] sucked every which way but loose,” said Scheidt. “You wake up every morning, shake your head and say ‘that was a terrible dream.’ Then you realize it wasn’t a dream. It’s reality.”

For Katie’s mother, Eve Cascone of Wilton, the pain has become worse with time. “Now it’s real,” she said. “I was in denial last year. I can’t deny it anymore. It’s become very ‘in my face,’ and real. Don’t think it won’t happen to your child. Not that I’m saying give

According to New York State Senator George Amedore, “The state of New York is facing a heroin cri-sis, and we need to do everything we can to stop the flow of these deadly drugs into our streets. Our efforts to increase prevention, treatment and recovery to help those suffering with addiction need to go hand-in-hand with stronger penalties for those who are bringing these drugs into our communities.”

And so, Amedore introduced “Laree’s Law” (S.4163) in 2015, leg-islation that establishes the crime of homicide by sale of an opiate-con-trolled substance and makes the crime a class A-1 felony, punishable by 15 to 25 years in prison. It had orig-inally been introduced the year before by Senator Neil Breslin, but was taken up by the majority in 2015. It passed the Senate but died in Assembly last

year, and is presently on third read-ing on the floor of the Senate, while still being weighed in the Codes

Committee in the Assembly (A.6039, sponsored by Assemblyman Michael DenDekker).

Currently, drug dealers are not held accountable in New York State if one of their “clients” dies of an over-dose. If the case is tried at the federal level, such as in Katie’s situation, then the dealer can face 20 years to life with the added homicide charge.

According to the National Conference of State Legislators, sev-eral states press homicide charges when a dealer’s sale results in an over-dose death. It can even lead to a death penalty in Florida and Nevada.

But, according to Oscar Schreiber, Public Defender with the Saratoga County Public Defenders Office in Ballston Spa, that’s not the case in New York State. Even some-one with a prior violent felony, like rape, who is being convicted of fel-ony drug possession, might be sen-tenced to just 2 to 2.5 years in prison, depending on several other factors, even if the user who bought drugs from him dies of an overdose. Some defendants can face up to 30 years, depending on priors and other fac-tors. But none face homicide charges in New York State.

“A local mother had come to us originally,” said Amedore spokes-person Eileen Miller. “She’s a former Albany police detective from Colonie

and her daughter, Laree Farrell Lincoln, died of an overdose in 2013.” Fred Scheidt said Laree had also been going through rehabilitation when she died.

Schreiber said it’s especially dan-gerous for someone who has been trying to get clean. “Their resistance to the drug is so down after 30 days of coming off it, that if they slip and use, their dead,” he said. “We see a lot of that.”

“I think people who kill people need to be held accountable,” said Scheidt, “not only because of what they have done, but what they could do. We could see him [Matthew P. Charo, defendant in the case of Katie’s death] downtown with his friends. My family would see him around town, and all we could think was what would happen if his activities – because he was allowed to be out for whatever reason – what if he killed someone else. I believe he was still dealing drugs in downtown Saratoga, and at any moment, any one of those could have resulted in a death.”

According to Saratoga Springs Deputy Fire Chief Peter Shaw, “On average for the past three or four months, we have been using Narcan a couple times a week.”

The StopOverdoseIL.com website states Narcan™ (naloxone) is an opiate antidote. According

12 NEWS Week of April 15 – April 21, 2016

Katie-Lynn Scheidt at 3 years old and 20 years old. She would have been 32 on April 8. Photos courtesy of Eve Cascone.

Heroin AnonymousCapital District Hotline: 518-227-0294

Capital District Email: Info@heroinanonymousnycd.orgTo learn about meetings in Saratoga Springs,

call Darrin F. at 518-928-5687 or visit www.heroinanonymous.org/HAsaratogasprings1.html

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