<p>Martha’s Vineyard is set to become a laboratory for social change, as a broad coalition of Islanders prepares to launch a public health campaign aimed at combating the abuse of alcohol and drugs.
Martha’s Vineyard is set to become a laboratory for social change, as a broad coalition of Islanders prepares to launch a public health campaign aimed at combating the abuse of alcohol and drugs — both among young people and adults.
“What we’re trying to do is nothing less than changing the culture of the Island,” said Chip Coblyn, a member of the Substance Use Disorder coalition that formed on the Island in 2016.
The broad-based group of Island officials, medical professionals, clergy, community advocates and families has been meeting monthly for more than two years to seek solutions for the Vineyard, where 22 per cent of adults reported binge or excessive drinking in a recent national health survey, and vaping has become the high school’s leading disciplinary offense.
“We pinpointed the problem as we see it, which is just an overarching feeling of permissiveness where drug and alcohol use is concerned,” said Mr. Coblyn, who is helping to spearhead the new public health initiative. He said he believes the permissive culture took root decades ago when Martha’s Vineyard saw an influx of young people seeking alternative lifstyles.
“It’s something we think sprang up in the late 1960s and the 1970s, and it was cool then, but it’s so uncool now that we’re trying to break that habit,” he said.
It’s a tall order, admitted Mr. Coblyn and Mary Korba, communications manager for Martha’s Vineyard Community Services and a fellow member of the Substance Use Disorder coalition.
“This has to be a communitywide effort,” Ms. Korba said.
To enlist support from all walks of Island life, the coalition is partnering with a national public health marketing nonprofit, Public Good Projects, for a $1 million, 18-month campaign that begins next month.
More than $500,000 has already been raised, Ms. Korba said, including a $125,000 grant from the Tower Foundation.
Public Good Projects, which has successfully targeted sugary drinks, tobacco use, school wellness and vaccines in other communities, is also donating some of its time, she said.
Beginning next month, a team from Public Good Projects will come to the Vineyard to gather information through in-depth personal interviews, focus groups and a community survey. They also will start filming for a documentary.
Planned as the second phase of the campaign, the documentary will portray the insights the team gathered on the Island, Ms. Korba said.
The documentary is expected to run an hour or more in length. Its release next spring will usher in the third, most public phase of the campaign.
Ms. Korba said she hopes local theatres and film clubs will screen the documentary, which will be supported by a website and social media accounts.
“Their whole method is so incredibly interesting,” Ms. Korba said of Public Good Projects.
“It’s a gradual process of shifting social norms. The messaging is tailored. They’re not speaking at you; they’re meeting you where you are and entering the conversations, and a lot of it is done through social media.”
Mr. Coblyn said the Substance Use Disorder coalition and Public Good Projects are looking for what they call influencers, especially younger Islanders, to share the word that abstinence is cool.
Old-fashioned messaging is on the table as well.
“We’re even thinking of things as analog as lawn signs,” Mr. Coblyn said. “We’re trying to be as creative and wide open as we can.”
Ms. Korba said the campaign with Public Good Projects is just the beginning.
“Culture change takes time,” she said. “That’s why it’s so important for us to sustain the effort.”
For more information, visit mvaddictionhelp.com.
Comments
You definitely forgot to
Resident EdgartownYou definitely forgot to mention the work that is being done by Edgartown Police Dept on “Project Outreach”. It is a person to person help system, was written up in the Gazette recently, and a very, very important way to help people with addictions. Public Good Project sounds like an incredible organization, but remember the local, dedicated, professionally trained men and women who are also working hard to help all the people they can on a day to day basis...
The vineyard has its healthy
Larry Priester North TisburyThe vineyard has its healthy side for sure but health and wellness take a mindfulness that has to be modeled. It’s takes a strong person to not give into the social norm of some form of Unhealthy stimulation. When does that stimulant become unhealthy?when does the need become misaligned?
The Vineyard has been a place of unfettered joy for visitors where they are consumed with creating a visit that is joyful in a decedent manner. The price of entry has been so high for decades that a year round resident is constantly reminded of their service to the decadent visitors that the mind set of self meditation for a host of reasons is beyond control. Humans are insecure and as long as the rich and powerful play on the vineyard the year round community will be the collateral damage of their self destructive abuses. The Sh— — roles down hill and the year round community struggles to clean it up and since the Vineyard has a dysfunctional relationship with a need of the summer community there will be more abuse as long as there is a high and low season. The off Season has improved. But only if you have the skills and humility to realize you are there to serve the dysfunctional rich who have as many addictions and self destructive behaviors as us all. Balance is hard where plumbers and electricians can charge $250 an hour and the rich hope they show up and a landscape company can change $80 an hour for an immigrant laborer and pay them $12 and he’s willing to live in a room with six other people. What has the Island really turned into???
A pretty place of indulgent self abuse rich and the struggling. Good luck to you your going to need it. Funding will not solve this problem because drugs are to easy to get.
Do you know there is a delivery service from the dispensary’s.?
Larry - good points. Right
Gayle Turowski Poughkeepsie, NYLarry - good points. Right on. As a 'visitor' (not wealthy at all) to the Vineyard for over 30 years, I have seen how much the island has been changing. I do hope the good people of the Vineyard, the ones that really work for a living, can sustain their lifestyle in a healthy and fun way. I would give anything to be able to live on the Vineyard. I appreciate all it has to offer and count my blessings that I can still come if only for a week. I hope this program opens people's eyes to the blessings of where they live and the fact that instead of doing drugs and alcohol, they to to the myriad of beautiful beaches, walks, and places to get their 'high'. They are blessed to even live on this majestic island. I live with population explosion and farm land and woods being plowed down at an alarming rate. So if people really open their eyes and really 'see' where they live, perhaps they won't need a chemical substance to make them happy. I wish this program well. I'll be back next June.
They are launching a campaign
Charlie Callahan So Boston/EdgartownThey are launching a campaign to fight alcohol and drugs which is a great thing, and on the other hand the dummies who issue permits gave those so called BUSINESSMEN a permit for a DOPE STORE.This is like where I grew up in Southie, on one corner there is a rehab house and across the street on Broadway the pushers are selling weed and heroin. You don't need a DOPE store for medicinal marijuana, you can get it with an RX from a doctor for pain and for appetite if you are sick. These slugs opening the dope store act like they are helping humanity when all they will do is help make future junkies. Anyone who says pot is not the start to the hard stuff is either high or stupid
Figure it out folks--the
get real on drug policesFigure it out folks--the approach to the drug war and criminalistion of users doesn't work--nor do the types of just say no approaches to education that are getting recycled from the past. Check out this book if you want to gain a good understanding of America and it's relationship to drug use.
Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari
I found it both sad and
Mr. B. ChilmarkI found it both sad and predictable that Dr. Mazer and his groundbreaking work were forgotten/overlooked. Although his work, People and Predicaments, is out of print, it is worth finding and reading. Filming for a documentary. Says it all.
https://vineyardgazette.com/obituaries/2007/01/12/marthas-vineyard-comm…
It's about time, says I. The
Shelley Wilbur EdgartownIt's about time, says I. The lax attitude around the use of drugs and alcohol on the Vineyard, and, in fact, throughout the US approaches insanity. In cultures in which substance misuse is frowned upon, the rate of addiction is very low. Take Italy, for example. Despite the fact that wine is consumed there with nearly every lunch and dinner, Italy has a very low rate of alcoholism because drunkenness is taboo. I'm aware that !2 step programs have saved lives and I really believe that AA is a noble organization. That being said, I also believe that the disease model of addiction on which the tenants of AA are based only brush the surface of America's substance abuse problems. Twelve step programs save life after addiction sets in but it is the acceptance of indulgence in mood altering substances, including food, that has us in this situation to begin with. It's appalling to me the degree to which the Vineyard has accepted cannabis use in teens given that study after study has shown via advance brain imaging technology that it causes significant structural changes to the adolescent even after just one or two uses. Before any one of you walks around saying that cannabis is harmless please spend five minutes researching what science really is saying about pot and brain development which continues well into the twenties. I'm not suggesting that we should go back to a time when pot possession could get someone thrown in jail but this notion that it is a harmless drug is steeped in ignorance. Just saying...
It is unfortunate that it has
Marit Bezahler VHIt is unfortunate that it has taken almost 4 years for the SUD Coalition to adopt a campaign instead of starting with and using a FREE Department of Public Health campaign or PSA. A $1,000,000 is being spent and I can only imagine the quality of providers or services that could be procured and utilized for that amount of money. Martha’s Vineyard has the 2nd highest per capita overdose death rate in the country. The SUD Coalition was formed as a community response to this epidemic, but it has had tremendous attrition because the agenda has not produced much of a response to the opioid epidemic or the current issue of vaping. In my experience, the Coalition has not served a broad segment of the island, but rather a small group with self serving interests. Although this group is supposed to be a public entity, the narrative of what is happening has been controlled entirely by MVCS, as has the email list of what gets disseminated. The members that have remained are mostly interested in alcoholism. Although alcohol is the largest issue on the island, it is concerning to me that there has been lack of a strong response to the most current and immediate threats to our community. These epidemics have not been addressed with a timely or effective approach. Is there a reason that a “better late than never” campaign is being applauded? I am tired of the spin being one of fabulousness when it’s nothing but self congratulating mediocrity. It’s time to name the elephant in the room.
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