COAST Interview with Dan Hicks, Prevention Services Manager
COAST began as a collaboration of Agency Leads from across the County, including Public Health, Emergency Medical Services, Sheriff’s Office, Medical Examiner’s Office, and the Health Care Agency’s Ambulatory Care.
Tell us about your educational and work background.
Dan: My work in Prevention started decades ago after graduating from Princeton and moving to Southern California. I thought I'd get some experience as a counselor on the way to an advanced degree in clinical psychology. I was working an internship at Capistrano by the Sea Psychiatric Hospital, when I began to realize how economic and social forces were shaping what drugs were causing so much trouble, common themes about how clients got started with abuse, and who was coming in for treatment with insurance coverage (and also who was not). I decided to take a step back, asking myself if I really wanted to "keep pulling people out of the deep water, or go upstream and keep them from falling in."
I studied with experts from UC Berkeley and UCLA, and took a position funded by the US Dept. of Education focused on alcohol and drug prevention for commuter college students. My direction completely changed. I started working on policies with the City of Irvine, the County of Orange, and then the State Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, and I've been in prevention work ever since.
When did you start with Ventura County Behavioral Health?
Dan: I actually came to VCBH by way of San Diego, working at the Institute for Public Strategies. Picked to lead the Ventura office, I started as a contracted technical assistance provider to community coalitions concerned with underage drinking, impaired driving, and a wide range of drug-related problems. Soon I was asked to lead a grant-funded effort to reduce alcohol-related problems in both retail and social settings countywide. I accepted a fixed-term position as a County employee in 2005. I've moved up a few ranks, but my passion remains prevention for Ventura County.
How did COAST get started?
Dan: Around 2010, we had implemented some impressive policies and programs to reduce underage and binge drinking in Ventura County, but we started to see big changes in the scale and severity of prescription drug misuse. We didn't fully realize it then, but the Opioid Crisis was already well underway. There was liberal pain-killer prescribing, limited consequences for "dirty doctors," and rising levels of heroin use. We teamed up with the Sheriff's Office like never before to address opioid availability and enforcement, forming the Prescription Drug Workgroup. This ultimately became our much larger Opioid and Illicit Drug Workgroup.
Realizing we didn’t have a centralized dashboard for inter-departmental efforts, and building years of collaboration, we pursued Department of Justice funding and the County Opioid Abuse Suppression Taskforce (COAST) was born. It initially launched as a three-year grant, but it continues to expand even after funding.
What have some of the challenges been?
Dan: The two biggest challenges have been 1) the dynamic nature of the crisis, and 2) the complications of the COVID 19 pandemic. COAST multi-agency efforts began in earnest just as fentanyl was displacing a lot of heroin use and getting added into the wider drug supply. That was, and still is, a major challenge. We’ve entered the synthetic age, and it is so, so much easier for people who use a drug to accidentally overdose. Of course, this was hugely compounded by a pandemic. But County leadership recognized overdose prevention and opioid suppression as essential services, and we’ve really adapted in huge ways-- our community messaging, engagement and training—all have changed to meet growing needs.
What value do our contractors bring to the work that we do?
Dan: I think it’s safe to say that we could not have achieved everything we have—including more than 3,000 documented overdose reversals—without the dedicated work of our contractors. Clearly there is passion and purpose behind the work of agencies who are in the business protecting our communities and saving lives. If people want proof, just take a look at www.VenturaCountyResponds.org !
Board of Supervisors Meeting – June 6, 2023
A presentation by the County Opioid Abuse Suppression Taskforce (COAST) on the multi-agency effort to combat the opioid crisis in Ventura County was given to the Board of Supervisors on June 6th. County Behavioral Health Director Scot Gillman, and Substance Use Services Manager Dan Hicks, laid out the history of the heroin, opioid and now, fentanyl crisis in our county, as well as the decades long effort by Behavioral Health Department to address them.
It was a united front by all COAST Leads: Public Health’s Associate Public Health Officer, Dr. Uldine Castel, Medical Examiner Dr. Christopher Young, Assistant Sheriff Victor Fazio and District Attorney Erik Nasarenko, on what their individual offices are doing toward this effort as well as the power of the combined efforts by COAST. The Board members had numerous questions and lauded the COAST Leads for all being done in our county around this ongoing health and law enforcement crisis in Ventura County, as well as the country.
Facing Down Fentanyl
See highlights from the presentation to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors on June 6, 2023:
Interview With Assistant Sheriff Victor Fazio
COAST has enjoyed the collaboration of COAST Leads from agencies within Ventura County, including Public Health, Emergency Medical Services, Medical Examiner’s Office, Health Care Agency and Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.
Tell us about your background. How long you’ve been with VCSO and what your role is?
I started my career with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office in 1994. I worked a variety of assignments throughout the agency spending a large portion of my career investigating narcotics related offenses. During my 16 years assigned to the narcotics division, I commanded two multi-agency task forces. One task force focused on the proliferation of pharmaceutical drugs and the surge of heroin and opioid related overdose deaths. The other task force was dedicated to identifying and neutralizing drug trafficking organizations at the highest level.
I was proud to also serve the City of Moorpark – which contracts law enforcement services with the Sheriff’s Office – as Chief of Police for nearly four years from 2019-2023. In January of 2023, Sheriff Fryhoff appointed me as one of his four Assistant Sheriffs. I have the honor of leading the Special Services Division which includes Major Crimes, Narcotics, Bomb and Arson Unit, Criminal Intelligence, Crime Analysis, Crime Lab, Air Unit, Crime Scenes Investigation Unit, SWAT, Tactical Negotiations Unit, Technical Services Unit, and Sheriff’s Systems Bureau which is responsible for hardware, software, and new technology.
What can you tell us about FOCUS?
The Ventura County Fentanyl and Overdose Crimes Units (VC FOCUS) is the rebranding of the Ventura County Interagency Pharmaceutical Crimes Unit. The mission of VC FOCUS is to actively address overdoses and fentanyl related crimes in Ventura County through enforcement, prevention, education, and partnerships. Investigations by VC FOCUS will create accountability, education supports prevention, and public partnerships assist in fostering increased awareness of this epidemic. VC FOCUS is comprised of two units of law enforcement representation from the east and west side of Ventura County.
VC FOCUS will be relentless in making communities safe from fentanyl and other opioids. Through partnerships with COAST, Federal, State, and Local Law enforcement, the Justice System and the Community, VC FOCUS will strive to eliminate the root cause to addiction and deaths caused by illicit opioids.
What do you think readers should know about the opioid crisis in Ventura County currently?
Without bold action, the opioid crisis isn’t going anywhere soon. Unless we work together, we will never solve the problems related to opioid misuse and abuse. We have a seemingly endless supply of fentanyl coming from Mexico and sourced by China. Unfortunately, there is a long-standing appetite for opioids in our county which continues to poison our residents. We must be united in education and prevention efforts, understand the importance of harm reduction, and maintain a desire to hold drug dealers accountable. This isn’t solely a law enforcement problem, a behavioral health issue, or a public health responsibility, it is an all of us problem that needs all of us to solve it.
Tell us one thing about you that helps us get to know you better?
I enjoy teaching and have instructed well over 10,000 law enforcement officers, health care providers, and community members throughout the nation on various law enforcement related topics. Additionally, I am an Adjunct Criminal Justice Professor for the University of Southern California as well as Arizona State University in both graduate and undergraduate programs. I also like learning, researching, and writing. I have a bachelor’s degree from UCLA in political science, a master’s degree from ASU in criminal justice, and a doctorate in education from USC where my research was focused on reducing harms caused by opioids through physician education.
Thank you, Victor, for sharing your valuable experience with us!