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March against heroin cut short by reported overdoses

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Organizer Mike Markley displays signs during the Fight Against Heroin March and Rally in Washington Saturday.

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Ed and Dorothy Caffrey, whose grandson died of a heroin overdose just before Christmas, listen during a Fight Against Heroin March and Rally in Washington Saturday.

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Participants walk down Hall Avenue in Washington for a Fight Against Heroin March and Rally Saturday.

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Organizer Mike Markley holds signs being used in an anti-heroin rally and march in Washington Saturday.

They gathered to rally and march to bring attention to the growing heroin problem plaguing their Washington communities.

But the planned march from the Seventh Ward playground to the Eighth Ward playground in Washington Saturday afternoon came to an abrupt end in the parking lot of Washington High School after Mike Markley learned city police were called to two reports of possible heroin overdoses in the West End neighborhood.

“I decided to cut it short,” said Markley, organizer of Fight Against Heroin March and Rally. “I didn’t think it was a good idea to continue.”

Dorothy Caffrey and her husband, Ed Caffrey, of Washington, know first-hand the heartache of heroin. Just before Christmas, their 24-year-old grandson, Andrew Keenan, died of a heroin overdose, leaving behind not only his parents, grandparents and siblings, but a daughter who was just 17 months old at the time of his death.

“He was a good boy,” Dorothy Caffrey said, adding it wasn’t until Keenan entered high school that “things started to go wrong.”

She said his parents twice sent him for rehabilitation and even moved to Myrtle Beach, S.C., to give him a new start, but he started using the drug again.

“They have been through hell and back,” she said of Keenan’s parents.

Dorothy Caffrey said his mother and his other grandparents are helping raise her great-granddaughter, who she described as a sweetheart who is the image of her father.

Ed Caffrey said people should not be ashamed to say that their loved one is addicted to heroin.

“Don’t even try it, not even once, because you will get hooked,” Dorothy Caffrey said of heroin. “It is like a disease. You lie and steal to get it because your brain says you have to have it.”

In a Facebook post, Keenan’s mother wrote one bad decision leads to a lifetime of struggle. She said awareness and education are vital to make parents realize the magnitude of the epidemic and to keep kids terrified of trying heroin.

For Markley, the heroin epidemic hits home. His former college roommate and good friend died of a heroin overdose in May. His best man, who was also addicted to the drug, died not from an overdose but from the effects of its use, Markley said. Two young men whom he coached in sports also overdosed on heroin but survived. The rash of recent heroin overdoses, including four deaths attributed to the drug, prompted him to organize the rally and march.

“Some people don’t think it will help, but I tell them we have to start somewhere,” Markley said. “And what better way than to come together as a community? People need to step up and not turn away and don’t demonize the epidemic.”

“When my friends died, I thought I hadn’t done enough to help them,” he added.

The 38-year-old Markley said he grew up on Shirls Avenue, not far from the Seventh Ward playground. He has seen the city change in the last several years.

“And that’s just a darned shame,” Markley said.

Bob Wise, who still lives in the West End where he grew up, also watched the city change, and not in a good way.

“You used to be able to leave your doors unlocked,” Wise said. “Drugs are part of the problem. And I question where these young people are getting guns.”

Brenda Baggus of Claysville attended the rally and march. She, too, has seen the devastating effects of heroin. A friend of her son died of a heroin overdose.

“It is just terrible,” Baggus said. “More needs to be done to get those addicted the care and treatment they need. And we need to break the stigma of addiction.”

Washington County District Attorney Eugene Vittone said there have been about 50 reported overdoses this month, most attributed to batches of heroin laced with fentanyl. Vittone said David Hickton, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, offered his assistance in prosecuting those dealing in heroin.

Markley said heroin is a poison that has taken over the town.

“We are letting those people giving the drugs know that we are taking our streets back,” Markley said, urging those gathered to give a rally cry of “We are fed up!”

Markley said a meeting will be scheduled in October to discuss the next rally and march that will likely start at the Eighth Ward playground where Saturday’s march was to have ended. The next march will be scheduled for November.

Anyone needing referrals for treatment can call Washington Drug and Alcohol Commission at 1-800-247-8379 or visit www.wdacinc.org.

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