Why am I still writing about Heroin? Is it because of all the people Heroin kills or that opiates are destroying families and harming our communities in ways that I cannot fathom? The truth is I am not sure any of us know the depth of pain these drugs are creating. What I do know is that we want to help. Thanks to Mark MacDonald of MacDonald Funeral Home in Marshfield, MA we now know there is something we can do to stop a Heroin death in its tracks. Today I will share how Mark is helping his town do more.

  Thanks to Mark’s efforts, every employee of MacDonald Funeral Home is now able to administer Narcan. He is working to make sure that every business in Marshfield is able to stop a Heroin death in its tracks. One dead soldier and her family, especially her sister, Melissa O’Hearn, founder of the Marshfield Coalition against Heroin and Opiates Facebook page, are the reason Mark is on this quest. Today I’ll tell you what Mark is doing to mobilize his fellow business owners and citizens.

  Before we go there, let’s go back to one Sunday in February when according to Mark, a young man began “screaming for help on the Marshfield Coalition Against Heroin and Opiates Facebook page after overdosing twice that weekend.” That Sunday this young man took to Facebook to beg the over 1500 members of Melissa’s coalition for help in getting himself sectioned. Within 30 minutes of his post Melissa and Mark got a hold of Billy Taff, a man Mark calls a vigilante against drugs, and Billy began to work. Billy helped make sure this man’s support system could keep him safe and that they could get him to court that Monday where the state would commit him to the recovery bed Billy had secured for him.

  Word of mouth, or in this case clicks and posts, worked to keep this young man safe and they continue to help others who are screaming, “I give up, I need help, take me to treatment.”

  Word of mouth is also helping Mark’s own initiative to make Narcan certification available to every Marshfield business. Melissa telling Mark how her sister died at their chance encounter sparked Mark’s decision to get his team Narcan certified. Then Mark announced that his funeral home would be the first funeral home and, from all reports, the first business in Massachusetts trained to administer Narcan, at an International Overdose Awareness Day and Candlelight Vigil. The event, Marshfield’s first, was organized by Selectmen Chairman Matthew McDonough, Melissa O’Hearn, and Mark MacDonald.

  Mark’s announcement at the Overdose Awareness Day on August 31, 2015 opened the megaphone of the Massachusetts news media. First, reporter Chris Burell put Mark’s plan to train and arm every member of MacDonald Funeral Home with Narcan in the Patriot Ledger. From there, the TV newscasters were not far behind with every channel in Massachusetts telling their viewers about Mark MacDonald and how his funeral home will be the first funeral home and quite possibly the first business in Massachusetts able to administer the lifesaving drug Narcan. Word of mouth also led me to tell you all about Mark’s initiatives in this series that began last October.

  Word of mouth is growing Mark’s initiative and we are not done chatting yet because in the coming months I will tell you all about Mark’s first class and how he helped make Marshfield’s Overdose Awareness day a reality. I look forward to your thoughts and hope you will heed the plea “Love your addict, hate the addiction.” These are not easy words to hear I only pray that you can open the Love in your heart so that we can join Mark, Melissa, and the town of Marshfield and find our own ways to stop Heroin in its tracks.