For Part 2 of our series on heroin’s deadly impact, see Sunday’s Dayton Daily News and mydaytondailynews.com for complete coverage, including videos of families and those who deal with the crisis every day.
Heroin hasn’t been a huge political issue in past elections, but the epidemic is creeping into places it hasn’t been before.
Even in this year’s race for attorney general.
On Friday, Attorney General Mike DeWine and his Democratic opponent, David Pepper, both said the epidemic has expanded to every corner of the state.
“It’s much more prevalent at all levels than any crisis we’ve seen in a long time,” Pepper said.
The drug has been tied to the deaths of more than 900 Ohioans in 2013, though complete numbers are hard to come by.
Pepper and Ed FitzGerald, a Democrat who is running for governor, have criticized the Kasich administration and DeWine for not making the heroin issue a bigger priority.
In an interview, Pepper on Friday said Kasich and DeWine should have seen the crisis coming. One outcome of their work to shut down so-called pill mills, he said, sent people to use heroin as a cheaper and more easily accessible alternative.
“I don’t think Ohio as a state really has any kind of comprehensive plan on this,” Pepper said. “There’s a program here. There’s a program there. But big picture, they’ve been cutting local government for years.”
DeWine said his office has been proactive, combating the epidemic through education, prevention and enforcement. He’s held a dozen town hall meetings across the state to hear community concerns, and made three hires to provide educational outreach. Two of those are mothers who lost children to overdoses.
He also formed a new Bureau of Criminal Investigations heroin unit that DeWine says gets vital help and expertise to smaller local jurisdictions. He said the new unit helps get dealers off the street or engages them in larger organized crime investigations.
“We have focused on heroin for some time in the Ohio Attorney General’s office,” DeWine said. “Our goal is to run a crime lab so that when evidence is brought in we get it right back to police. We’re doing that much quicker than it was ever done in the past.”
Pepper unveiled a plan that includes: treating the issue as a public health crisis and facilitating conversations between law enforcement and public health officials; working on stemming the demand by adopting best practices in prevention and building up school prevention efforts; increasing treatment by identifying gaps in treatment and adding capacity; increasing treatment in the criminal justice system; recovering funds through litigation by targeting pharmaceutical companies for their role in marketing opioids; and cracking down on dealers and creating a system for real-time data analysis.
Pepper and the Democrats have been particularly critical in recent months of what they characterize as a move to cut treatment and recovery dollars through a shift in the way federal treatment funding is distributed. The state changed the funding period from 12 months to 18 months, without offering state funding to help cover the costs — a move Pepper says will cost $20 million across the state. Locally, it will mean about $1 million for Montgomery County, he said.
“Those simply mean that fewer people will get treatment,” Pepper said.
“There’s not nearly enough treatment anywhere and the idea that the state has just pulled back on treatment is to me, frankly appalling,” Pepper said. “I think it’s a terrible decision in the middle of the crisis exploding.”
DeWine said adequate funding for treatment is a “challenge for our state” and agreed more should be spent to get people into treatment faster. But there’s little he can do beyond using the bully pulpit of the office, he said.
“This is something that’s not under the jurisdiction of the attorney general,” DeWine said. “I think it’s a shame, frankly, that my opponent continues to try to make people’s tragedies an issue in the political campaign. I think people are sick of that.”
About the Author