3 | CHOPPER PAINTERS March 13, 2017 | VOL. 53, No. 11
13 | FAMILY-OWNED BUSINESSES
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With opioid-related deaths on the rise, nonprofits increase education efforts BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com
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too ready-made for the news cameras, Ganim admitted his interest in generating press coverage to challenge negative stereotypes about Bridgeport. “It captures attention if we do something like we did this morning, where people think of the city and say, ‘What’s going on in Bridgeport? It sounds like they have things under control,’” he said. “There’s always more we can do to better position and project. One of our shortcomings is not ramping up and communicating some of the positive things happening in the city as well as we could. It is easy to allow certain elements of the news to dominate — and, as with any major urban center with a list of
s the opioid crisis grows, several Connecticut-based organizations are redoubling their education efforts about the outcomes that abusing such drugs as methadone, oxycodone and hydrocodone can have. One of those groups, the Newtown Parent Connection, is presenting a proactive substance abuse program in Newtown March 27-29 with two of the nation’s top experts on drugs — former DEA Special Agent Robert M. Stutman and former Michigan judge and anti-drug advocate Jodi Switalski. The educational sessions are designed to reach roughly 1,600 students in grades 7 through 12, as well as parents, administrators, law enforcement, medical professionals and the general public. Newtown Parent Connection grew from the prescription drug overdose of the son of founder and Executive Director Dorrie Carolan, who began the 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 1993. “There was, and still is, this misconception that only ‘bad kids’ are experimenting with drugs,” Carolan said from her office at 2 Washington Square. “But that is pretty obviously not the case.” According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overdose deaths involving prescription opioids have quadrupled since 1999, with more than 183,000 people in the U.S. dying from such overdoses between 1999 and 2015. The cost to businesses is also running rampant. According to health information firm Castlight Health, opioid abuse costs the U.S. economy nearly $56 billion per year, while the American Society of Addiction Medicine reported last year that employers lose $10 billion a year from absenteeism and lost productivity due to opioid abuse. Opioid abusers cost employers nearly twice as much, $19,450, in medical expenses on average annually as do
» Bridgeport, page 6
» Opioid, page 6
Slice of Bridgeport
See story on page 2
Owner Freddy Tomaj, center, with nephew Nick Gjuraj and niece Ann Marie Tomaj at the family-run Milano Wine Bar & Pizzeria in downtown Bridgeport. Photo by Phil Hall.
Mayor battles Bridgeport blight and bad image BY PHIL HALL phall@westfairinc.com
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hen Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim sat down in his office to speak with the Business Journal, he was still on an adrenaline kick from an event earlier in
the day, when he manned the controls of a demolition crane to tear down a condemned property in the city’s East End. “I was afraid that I was going to push the wrong lever and tear down a building that is not supposed to be demolished,” he said with a laugh. And if the image of the mayor physically removing blighted structures seems a little