Barry and Candace Crupi’s son Johnathan died of a heroin overdose at their home on Staten Island. He was 21. The obituaries have a certain sameness to them: full of praise and regret for lives cut short, marked by telltale details and omissions. The deaths occurred at home, or at a friend’s house elsewhere on Staten Island. The mourned were often young and white, and although how they died was never mentioned, nearly everyone knew or suspected the cause.

TYLER: Staten Island is in the middle of a heroin epidemic. The borough has the most opiate deaths per capita in the city – twice Manhattan’s rate.   GREGOIRE: Most of these fatalities are happening on the island’s more prosperous South Shore. Joe Sykes reports on how Staten Islanders are searching for ways to come to terms with the problem.   _______________________________________________________________________     SYKES: It’s on the Staten Island Ferry   Up Staten Island Ferry   you first notice all might not be well in New York’s least populated borough. Among advertisements for Italian restaurants and golf resorts there are public service posters which portray empty beer bottles and boxes of pills. The tagline: “Heroin starts here.”   Clare Porcello says that’s how her son Joey got addicted.   Clare: This is his graduation picture. That’s when he started, when he first took that pill that’s when he [...]

Watch This Video Here. Some 30 people recently gathered on a rainy evening at a local high school auditorium, and while most were strangers, they were united by the burden of a loved one addicted to heroin -- and by their hope for help from an unlikely angel. Alicia Palermo-Reddy, a full-time nurse on Staten Island, started her own support group, called Addiction Angel, after a member of her extended family had a drug problem five years ago. Since then, she has seen a disturbing increase in heroin addiction in this borough of New York City and not enough resources to fight it. So she took on the fight. "I realized I have knowledge, drive and the energy to help people with addiction, and the biggest part of the problem which I found on Staten Island was that there were no resources," she said. "I started holding support groups in [...]

View This Video Here. As Staten Island battles a heroin epidemic, one native is leading the charge. NY1's Stephanie Officer filed the following report. Sharing their own experiences of overcoming addiction, students who have already been exposed to drugs are hoping to deter others from trying them. "I was a homeless heroin addict. I was rescued by being arrested. Getting arrested gave me time of being by myself and sit with myself and get to think about my family," said Jacquelin Tavares. "I was doing Perc 30s. Percocets. I was using straight for three to four years,” Jamie Longo stated. "We're at Bloomingdale park all the time. We're around the area, we smell it. I don't wanna be like that when I get older,” said I.S. 34 student Michael Federico. Alicia Reddy wants this message to resonate with every audience member who attended her Scared Straight event at Tottenville High [...]

From prescription pills to heroin, substance abuse experts say the borough's drug problem is only growing worse. NY1's Anthony Pascale discusses the problem with Candice Crupi who lost her son to a drug overdose and Alicia Reddy, the founder of "Addiction Angel," a drug support group. View this video here. by Anthony Pascale, Friday, October 16, 2015

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