On Wednesday, March 27 at 6:00 p.m., American actor, director, and producer Daniel Baldwin spoke to a crowd of about 120 people from across the county about drug addiction and his personal battles with addiction. The presentation was right here in GRB's auditorium.

Baldwin provided multiple facts on drug overdoses and the factors leading to addiction. Drug overdoses are the leading cause of death in America for people under the age of 50 years old. In 2018, there were more drug overdoses than there were deaths in the Vietnam War. Drugs like Heroin are being laced with Fentanyl, which is very lethal. Sixteen salt-sized grains of Fentanyl is a lethal dose. Ninety percent of teens who become addicted start on prescribed pills following an injury or a medical procedure. The suicide rate in New York is high and could most definitely be related to drug use for people ages 15-25.

Baldwin spoke about his own battles with addiction. He spent 20 years fighting against the addiction to Cocaine as well as 30 years being addicted to smoking. Baldwin has been sober from drugs since around 2006 and sober from smoking for a few months. He had multiple criminal charges against him while he was taking drugs. Now that Baldwin has been sober, he will attend AA meetings to provide support to people attending. He also helps families who have someone battling addiction and will do what he can to support them and give that person the help they need to become sober.

If you know someone who has someone in their family struggling from addiction, you can email BaldwinHelp@ICloud.com where everything is confidential and he will provide the help he can to get the person who needs help placed somewhere to give them that help. Baldwin has helped numerous people who have had or still have their own battles with addiction and will continue to make time to help people.

Addiction can commonly happen after an injury where someone may be prescribed a painkiller. When some people run out, they may want to keep taking it as they have become addicted and could potentially buy illicit drugs to feed their addiction. In addition to this, Baldwin believes that people should only be prescribed medicine for seven days after an injury or surgery to cut down on the rates of addictions starting on prescribed painkillers.

Looking for signs of addiction in a suspected family member is a great start to getting help. Look if things are missing around the house like spoons, aluminum foil, or jewelry. See if that person is acting strange. That could all be signs that something could be seriously wrong. Addiction is a disease that needs to be solved. Baldwin and his brothers want to raise money to build an addiction help center right here in New York State as Baldwin is quite concerned about what goes on in New York as he was born, raised, and resides here. He said he will push to get this help center built.

Baldwin stated, “You have every right to go to a drug store with your child or family member and have them take a drug test to assure yourself that they are clean.”

Junior Cameron Warren, who attended the presentation, said, “I think it was really good. It’s good knowledge for kids to know about how badly drugs can negatively impact someone's life.”