Drug Related Deaths in Warren County
2009
Total drug related deaths 37
Prescription abuse 24
Heroin 08
Cocaine 04
Methadone 01
2010
Total drug related deaths 24
Prescription abuse 17
Heroin 04
Cocaine 02
Methadone 01
2011
Total drug related deaths 23
Prescription abuse 13
Heroin 06
Cocaine 01
Methadone 03
2012
Total drug related deaths 31
Prescription abuse 14
Heroin 14
Cocaine 02
Methadone 01
2013 (through 7/24/13)
Total drug related deaths 22
Prescription abuse 08
Heroin 12
Cocaine 01
Methadone 01
Source: The Warren County Coroner’s Office
From the courtroom to the pulpit to prison, officials in Warren County have begun an all out blitz to combat the growing problem of heroin addiction.
Victor Kidd, Mason’s vice mayor and the former pastor of the Living Leaf Community Church, has prayed with and supported those who are addicted to the drug. But lately, he has ratcheted up his efforts, reaching out to others groups and individuals in an effort to stamp out use and abuse of the deadly and corrosive drug.
“I don’t know what I can do about all of this; I’m just a community volunteer,” Kidd said. “But I know as good as all of our agencies are, there are still people falling through the cracks. I wanted to try to seal up some of those cracks if I possibly can.”
Kidd has met with State Sen. Shannon Jones on a number of occasions, and the state legislator hosted about 75 stakeholders for a roundtable discussion about the problem in Franklin last week.
Jones said she dove into the issue because she has been hearing horror stories about the enormity of the problem. Prevention, she said, is her goal.
“This is certainly not a new issue. We’ve been dealing with it (drugs) in the general assembly,” Jones said. “We’ve dealt with bath salts and pill mills, and others. Every time we have to deal with an issue, a new one springs forward, and now it’s heroin.
“I don’t know exactly what the next form is going to take, but I know that I’m going to work on the prevention side of things,” she said.
Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell said he has seen a sharp uptick of cases — not necessarily drug cases per se — that have a heroin component. Anecdotally, the prosecutor said heroin use may be experiencing a resurgence because the drug is so pure these days a needle isn’t the only delivery system anymore. However, he said once people get hooked, they usually wind up shooting the drug to get a quicker high.
Either way, he said the drug is clogging the Warren County courts.
“Your embezzlement cases, theft from employers, robberies, burglaries, you name it, any type of property crime you can think of that appears on our grand jury docket as having been indicted, there’s a good chance there’s a heroin component,” he said. “It’s almost more common than not.”
Kidd added he has gleaned from his research that people — many of them kids — first become addicted to prescription painkillers like Vicodin and Percoce,t and when they can’t get those expensive pills anymore, they drop down to heroin.
John Burke, who heads the Warren County Drug Task Force, said when Oxycontin was reformulated in August 2010, people turned to heroin. He said capsules of heroin are about one-tenth of a gram and cost $10 to $15 a piece. But as the addiction worsens, they have to pop more and more of the pills, he said.
“Our cases in the last year, year-and-a-half have gone up 100 percent,” he said. “I think the overdose deaths attributable to heroin have gone up about 150 percent. Both are very significant rises in the abuse of this drug.”
Warren County Common Pleas Judge Robert Peeler is also part of the coalition of stakeholders who are working to combat the problem. He and Sheriff Larry Sims will be meeting to discuss how to begin sentencing offenders with heroin addictions to time in jail, but also require them to start a regimen of either Vivitrol or Soboxone. Peeler said both are proving to be promising treatments for heroin addiction and most private insurance plans should cover the treatment. However, the judge acknowledged there is some question as to whether Medicaid covers incarcerated people.
Neil Tilow, president and CEO at Talbert House, a drug and alcohol treatment and prevention agency, said the craving-eraser drugs Peeler spoke of are important weapons in the heroin addiction fight. He said increasing access to medications is something the county and state need to work on. Narcan is another crucial drug that he says should be widely available. He likened the medication to an EpiPen for allergies, saying it can save the life of someone who has overdosed.
When asked if the life-saving drug might encourage the use of heroin because the overdose threat is removed, Tilow said saving lives is paramount and that is why winning the battle requires a multi-faceted approach.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I’ve never seen a single drug problem this serious…,” he said. “Is drug addiction a terrible disease? Yes. And is it a brain disorder? Yes. Is it worse than death? I don’t think so.
“I want to stop people from dying if we can,” Tilow said. “I think it’s a series of interventions that are going to be required here.”
Tilow also said more addiction treatment centers are needed, since there can be a three-week wait now. Kidd said they have formed a non-profit organization called, The Leaf, and are considering building a rehabilitation and prevention center on 20 acres at his old church on U.S. 42.
Meanwhile a group of 150 inmates at the Lebanon Correctional Institution heard from addiction therapist Michael Johnson on Thursday. Many of the men who filled the prison chapel will be released in the next few years, and he was there to give them a taste of how he survived returning from his own incarceration and drug and alcohol addictions.
He told them they are going to be lonely when they get out because they can’t go back to the same toxic people they used to hang out with, when they were committing crimes. Otherwise, they risk jumping back into the same bad behavior, he said. It took him three tries at treatment before he kicked his habits about 30 years ago.
One inmate asked Johnson how he is supposed to stay clean, when the prison is not a drug-free environment.
“I come to an environment where it’s even more rampant,” the inmate said. “How am I going to get help? It’s vexing to my spirit.”
Johnson told the inmate he was talking like he is a hopeless case, and as he did many times during his presentation, he told the inmates there are harsh realities to face as a consequence of their actions.
“You’ve got to accept the fact that that life is over,” he said. “It’s done, it’s a done deal… You’ve got to ask yourself, where is the finish line on your B.S?”
LCI Warden Ernie Moore said he would not describe the contraband problem as rampant but agreed drugs and cigarettes do make their way into prison, mostly via visitors, but sometimes guards also provide the service for a fee.
“We do drug testing every month…,” he said. “Consistently, this prison is about three or four percent positives of everyone we test. That’s a very low percentage. This inmate described it as being rampant, I would describe it as being present but not rampant at all.”
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