By Nathaniel McDonough Community leaders are not stepping down in the fight against opioid addiction, even though overdose deaths are dropping. There were 2,125 opioid-related overdose deaths in 2023, which is 232 fewer than in 2022 when Massachusetts had a record 2,357 fatal opioid overdoses, according to a Department of Public Health report. The opioid crisis was fueled by Purdue Pharma plans to sell their prescription drug OxyContin in 1996. They manipulated studies to persuade the FDA to sign off on tthe drug and convince doctors to prescribe OxyContin for cases that did not require such heavy opioid prescriptions, according to the United States Department of Justice. Senator Patrick O’Connor, a state Senator representing the Norfolk district of Massachusetts has long been a champion for those who are affected by addiction and the opioid epidemic. “ This issue was one of the impetuses for me to get involved in government in the first place," he said. ...
Ryan Cassery, a Junior Marketing major at Stonehill, attended a career fair run by the Stonehill career development center called “Meet the Firms” during his sophomore year. This fair brought together over 30 hiring companies for students looking for internship and job opportunities. “I was able to talk to each company at the event and gave my resume to about 10 of the ones I connected with the most,” Cassery said. After the career fair Cassery reached out to one of the companies and was asked to apply directly through their website. He is now a paid fall semester sales intern at ALKU. ALKU is a staffing firm that matches individuals and companies to personal consultants. Cassery said his role is mostly “cold calling to hiring managers, trying to see if they are hiring pharmaceutical consultants.” Cassery also applied to Black Diamond, the Red Sox organization, Aflac, and LabCorp on Stonehill’s Job search site handshake. He did not end up following through with these after r...