Tour delivers a hard dose of reality about drugs

By Frances Ruth Harris
MILFORD — The Reality Tour is taking on Pike County's overwhelming and rising drug epidemic by offering parents and children a very tough education.
One Reality Tour skit illustrates the power of peer pressure. Another brings to life an emergency room overdose. Still others enact an arrest, a funeral, a prison scene.
"Some sections of the Reality Tour may be emotionally disturbing and parental guidance is a must," said Jill Gamboni, Reality Tour Director, in a recent presentation to the county commissioners. A parent or legal guardian must attend with any child under 18, she said.
The Milford law firm Weinstein & Zimmerman sponsors the Reality Tour, which is a program of the Pike County Alliance for Drug Prevention. Tours are planned for two upcoming Thursdays, April 20 and May 18, from 5:45 to 9 p.m., at The Milford Bible Church, 110 Foxcroft Drive, Milford. Registration forms are available online at http://bit.ly/2nKkbCV.
Commissioner Matt Osterberg said it was necessary to strike back at the epidemic from every angle, including prevention, post-incarceration use of the opiate blocker Vivitrol, on-going training in using the antidote Naloxone, and drug turn-in boxes. He wants to see the expansion of outpatient programs that address alcohol and opiate abuse.
Drugs are a rising problem in all communities across the county, Osterberg said, as residents continue to be found dead from overdoses and hangings, and other drug-related incidents.
For more information about the Reality Tour, call Gamboni at 570-390-9102 or email her at jillgamboni@yahoo.com.