Februari 07, 2017
â wbgu-tv's new series:addiction: heroin and pills. addiction to prescriptionopiates and heroin is at anall-time high. on average, 5 people a day are dieing inohio. it's our goal to raise awareness about thisepidemic by creating programsthat educate and inform. our objective is tohelp ohio get back on track. in this program, we will take alook at a town hall event thattook place in bowling green, ohio where adiverse panel of communitymembers discuss the opiate and heroin epidemicand how it is effecting manysectors of our community.
put together by the wood countyopiate task force, we present part 2 of our series. alright, maybe we can hear me a littlebetter if we do it this way. just to kind of give everyonean idea of who i am, a few ofyou probably recognize me, maybe recognizethe voice. my name is norm van ness. i am the chiefmeteorologist at channel 24 upin toledo. for those of you who don't know, i am a nwohio native. born and raised in the sticks insandusky county. right down theroad
i graduated from bowling greenstate university, lived in woodcounty and in bowling green, while iwas going to bowling greenstate university so it was an honor for me wheni was asked by ally watkins tocome and kind of moderate this event and helpcarry it through the eveningthat i had to say yes. this is aproblem that's getting more personal i think for everyonethat's in this room hasexperienced something either on the using end of it,maybe on the medical end of it, maybe on the lawside of this issue that we'rehere to talk about tonight, so it is somethingvery important i think foreveryone here and
it's really good to see thisbig of a turn out. it'ssurprising, and like kyle said,it's kind of sad that we have tohave this type of an event, butit's also very encouraging to see that so manypeople are concerned about itand want to be a part of trying tofind a solution, not only forbowling green but for wood county at large.before we kind of really geteverything started here tonight, i wanna kind ofintroduce everyone that's onthe panel here in a more formal fashion to get thingsstarted. she is part of ohioattorney general mike dewine's heroin unit.heidi travels all over thestate bringing awareness about heroin andsharing her resources with thegoal of
trying to significantly reducedrug abuse and help ohiofamilies. her passion and expertise comesfrom, unfortunately, a verypersonal tragedy as her daughter, marin, died ofa heroin overdose in 2012 when she was just 20 yearsold. heidi now uses that most painful experience of her lifeto help fuel her positive andpowerful drive to make real changes inohio one person and onecommunity at a time. so, we appreciate her for beinghere tonight. quick round ofapplause for heidi for being here and participatingtonight. next up is going to be andreaboxill, she is the deputy
director of the governor'scabinet on opiate action team. next as we get closer to the podium,is doctor mahjabeen islam. sheis a board certified by the americanboard of family medicine andamerican board of addiction medicine. she hasworked in all aspects ofaddiction medicine, from impatienttreatment, methadonemaintenance, intensive outpatient, and office basedopioid treatments. she wasmedical director for the tennesoncenter, the drug rehab unit atst. vincent and st. charles hospital, as well asmedical director of compass and
sassi. she currently practicesmedicine, assisted treatment,at her office in perrysburg, so we appreciateher being here tonight as well. coming to this side of the podium we have jordanfleitz. jordan is going toshare some of his personal experiences and hisstory and his journey on his road to recovery so weappreciate him being here inthis form for us tonight as well. now to the guy some of you probably recognizemore so than some of the othersfortunately and
maybe unfortunately in somecases. we have tom sanderson. tom is the firechief for the city of bowlinggreen fire division. tom has been aparamedic for 23 years and afirefighter for 30 years. he is pleased tobring his pre-hospital careprovider perspective to the panel tonight and talkabout the fire department'srole in using naloxone. so he is gonnabe here for us tonight. welcome to tom, thank you. and finally, tony hetrick. major hetrick is currentlyserving as the deputy chief atthe bowling green policedivision
here in ohio. he's a graduateof the fbi national academy,northwestern school of police staff andcommand, ohio certified lawenforcement executive, and has an associate degree incriminal justice from thecommunity college of the air force. major hetrickhas been with bgpd for 18 years and he served aseverything from a patrolofficer to detective, a drill sergeant, and alieutenant prior to his currentassignment as the deputy chief so we welcome tony heretonight as well. before we get started, we dohave a video presentation that we're gonna do. it's just a fewminutes long. this is actually
the video is called "marin'sstory" and it is the story of heidi's daughter marin. she had a smile that wouldlight up a room. she had a passion forbasketball. then she picked up golf and shewas a natural with that. she really enjoyed the game. the one thing that caught ustruly off guard going towards the end is we didn't realizehow badly she
felt about herself. look at thepictures. why would we think she had a self esteemproblem? but the fact of the matter is, that was one of themajor engines that drove her to areas where she really didn't need to go, didn't have to go. my spoons started to disappear. and i'm not talking 1 or 2.it's be like, okay i have like 3 spoons left.
and i remember i had 150 some dollars in my wallet.i had when i went to pay that i had 75 dollars. and of course she started crying, and "yes, i came down." "yes, i took your credit card.yes, i used it." and remember going to court thenext day, and you know,beautiful marin, and them bringing herin, shackles on her ankles in these prison uniformsand i'm sitting
there thinking to myself, "howdid we get here?" i was just numb. she needed the money to paysome people back, and she needed the money to tradethe gas for the heroin. if you would haveasked us: what do you know about heroin?i would have said, "a street drug, a junkiesdrug." you know, not something that you would hearabout on tv. it's not something that youwould find in a community like
pickerington or any suburb. i mean, i every day was that "we have to keep her alive, wehave to save her." if she saidshe was going to a meeting, i would follow aheadof time and sit in the parkinglot and see her walk in because i could breathagain, because she showed up, we got one more day,she's sober one more day. she never even had a car butshe still found a way to get itbecause
they would just bring it to thehouse when we were sleeping. i remember walking into theapartment, and i've never heardsuch a horrendous scream in all mylife. when i went up, and walked through thatbathroom door and saw him thereholding my daughter, um, i knew immediately she hadpassed away. i know she really wanted to make
it, and i know she doesn't want to seeany other family go throughwhat we have gone through and i knowshe wants me to talk about it. and i found her journal that i bought for her. in her journal,she wrote a goodbye letter toheroin. "dear heroin, before i met you i was full oflife. at least from what i thought. but then problems startedcoming my way that gave me the
excuse to meet you. it was likelove at first sight. not only did you do things forme, but boy, did i do things for you! i lied to myfamily, friends, and even more importantly, ilied to myself. i would steal and cheat foryou! i would risk me freedom and my life foryou! but our relationship went to hell whenthe first and last time youreally almost took me away forever. you haveme for 7 minutes. i won this battle
and i will never have to sufferagain! sincerely, your worst enemy, marin briggs. and she still went back to it. went still because of the gripit had on her. do i miss her every day? oh, sure. we can't bring her back, and wecan't go back. but if we can help other peopleby telling our story, thenthat's what we have to do. ♪
obviously, the video we just watched, veryemotional very touching, but again, very familiar to maybe alot of you that are sittinghere tonight. i want to go ahead and kind ofintroduce our first panelmember. what we're gonna do iskind of go down the line. each one's gonna comeup, make a few statements, andthen once we get done with that, then we'llbe branching out more so intosome questions and some open discussion here tonight. soeveryone please welcome downhere to the right heidi riggs. good evening.
i'd like to thank the woodcounty opiate task force for having me. i'd also like torecognize one of my colleagues that's with me tonight, nwregional director for theattorney general's office krystal lutman. if youneed anything, this is who youneed to call up here. as i traveled throughout thestate, it's unfortunate that i also get to meet a lotof moms that too have lost a child, and i would like torecognize one tonight, yolanda patton. if you couldstand.
i just wanna tell her how sorryi am, and i'm so glad you'rehere and the courage it takes to be here. she just recentlylost her son, and so i just wanna recognize her. thank you. on behalf of the attorneygeneral, thank you for havingme here tonight. i stand before you, not only asan employee of the attorneygeneral's office, but as a mother of a beautifuldaughter who was addicted to heroin. marin losther battle on january 28th 2012. two weeks after her20th birthday. we came forward in november of
2013 with the attorneygeneral's office to share ourstory publicly for the first time,and we also produced the videowhich has been viewed over 100,000 times on youtube.our purpose was to address the sigma ofthis disease. that the face of heroin can be anyone.the disease doesn't discriminate and it can happento any family, and it doesn't only happen to familieswho are uninvolved in theirchild's life. we were your typical middleclass family. my husband coached marin'sbasketball team, and i was
an elected official in ourcommunity. we never missed hersporting events, and she could tell us anything.we had a wonderful relationship. and marin had her whole lifeahead of her. did she push boundaries? like any teenager,sure she did. but she was always accountable for her actions.she was beautiful, smart, everything that you could askfor in a daughter. it was one bad decision that changedthe course of her life. marin didn't chose to be a heroinaddict, no one does. until the disease happens tothem. as you could see in the
video, a lot of the picturesthat i used, marin was activelyusing at that time, and we had noidea. so, if you look at thosepictures, who would think behind thatbeautiful smile was a heroinaddict. or who would havethought that her beautiful hair wasused to hide the track marks in her neck? andwho would have thought that marin would have tradedgasoline for heroin? but shedid. and our lives began to spiral,and every day was, "we have to keepher alive." however the disease ultimately took herlife, so as a result of our
tragedy, i've decided to makethis my life journey: sharingour story. bringing awareness to thestigma of this disease. because as parents, we weredevastated. how did this happento our family? we didn't talk about itwith our immediate family because of the shame we feltthat somehow it was our fault. a moral failing. buti know now that this was wrong. addiction is achronic relapsing brain disease and ifby telling our story we can save one life and preventanother family from living
with the pain that we live withevery day that i'm honoring my daughter's memory. i joined theoffice april 28th of this year, andironically it's where i began my career in public service in1996, and i'm honored and humbled to have thisopportunity to be a voice forall the families that are dealing with this disease.heroin is readily available in every suburb, inevery city, and every state and can be had for as little as10 dollars. it's an insidious and enticing drug that effectsthe otherwise intelligentchildren
who sit at your family table.it carries very little stigma with young people, and dealersdeliver it. it's as easy asordering a pizza. mexican cartelschannel heroin through decentralized distributionnetworks, and they communicatewith their dealers through disposable cellphones and gaming systems. the problem we have is a lot ofcommunities don't think theyhave a problem. but the latest numbers tell usa different story. our latest statistics in ohiotell us that 18 people a week are dieing from heroin, and thenumbers
that i listed are baseddirectly as heroin listed asthe cause of death. if you add other drugsand indirect deaths, we're probably looking closerto 30. and how did we get there? well the transitionto heroin came from theprescription opiates, and what we know isthe average use in ohio for prescription drugsis 14. and 70 percent of theprescription drugs are received from a friend, a lovedone, it effects all ages races, income levels. it's ssuburban epidemic.
even more startling is thecenters for disease control and prevention have reportedthat the death toll from drugsnow claims 1 life every 14 minutes. that's 100 people a day, andthat's 36,000 people a year, and we'reworried about ebola. more americans die now from drug overdose thanthey do in car accidents. i'd like to talk about what ouroffice has done because we are making great strides. wehave a lot of work to do,
and i'm honored to be witheveryone here tonight that'sworking very hard at this problem. we'verevoked the license of 53 doctors and 13pharmacists. we've closed allthe pill mills in scioto countywhich is where a lot of this began in ohio. we've convicted15 people who were the improper source ofprescribing and dispensing thedrugs. and as of may of 2014, we'veseized more than 1.83 million dollarsin pills, and we provided 57 prescriptiondrug boxes. in november
of 2013, the attorney generalcreated the heroin unit, and there's two areas. wehave the law enforcement side,which draws from existing resources includingour bureau of criminalinvestigation our state crime lab, whichhelps local law enforcement all across ohio with all sortsof criminal investigations. we now know testing for heroinis one out of ever three casesthat we do in our chemistry labat bci today. to date, the heroin caseload continues to rise. as of june 30th, we'vehad over 3,000 cases
and we're on track to be higherthan last year. in addition, we utilize staffresources from ohio organizedcrime along with our specialprosecution section to help ourlocal county prosecutors try these heroincases in court. and the second are is our drug abuse awarenessstaff, which consists ofmyself, jennifer binger and danielsmoot, and we go all over the state helpingcommunities put plans togetherand connecting them with resources inside andoutside our office to get theword out. the attorney general hasconducted 13 drug
community forums across thestate, and to date, theconsensus is it's a holistic solutioninvolving the entire community. this isn't just a lawenforcement problem. yes,they're part of the solution, but everycommunity needs to own it. our families, schools, faithcommunity, our court system, government leaders. we have tofight this at a grassroot level. we've also created trainingcourses through ohio peaceofficer training academy entitled theheroin epidemic, and we train 500 officers throughoutthe state free of charge.
we also began our narcan ornoloxin training which is the drugwhich i'm sure most of you arefamiliar with that reverses the effects of anopiate overdose. for any officers or lawenforcement departments that choose to arm theirofficers with it, we do providethe training on how to get it and how todispense it. we've also provided 160,000 over the counter prescription drug abusepamphlets, and we've awarded 10.7 million dollars tolaw enforcement agencies on
the d.a.r.e. program which hascompletely been revamped to include that they must teachon prescription drug abuse prevention as part of thecurriculum. we've also partnered with theohio department of health drugfree alliance with the 67 prescription drug dropboxes, and to date, we've collected 8.4 tons, whichis 16,000 pounds of unneededprescription medications. and i love to talk about thisbecause i have to pleasure ofworking with danielle smoot. i don't know ifyou've heard of her, but her
organization is called cole'swarriors. her son was a wrestler. bright,beautiful, just like all the kids are that thishappens to. and his friend told him that, youknow, "as wrestlers weshouldn't feel pain." and his grandfather had passedaway from cancer, and so he brought some pills to schoolwith the substitute teachersitting in the back of the classroom. he laidthem on the table, and severalboys, including cole, took them. later that afternoonwhen he got home, cole noticed that he had pinpoint pupils,
he was slurring his words, hewasn't acting right, and she asked him what he had done. andof course, as any child would,he knew he was in trouble and hedenied it. and she was innursing school so she pressed the factand he finally told her andgave her the other pill that he didn't take. onthe way to the er she contacted the other familymembers whose sons had takenthose pills. and they took him to the er.they watched him and releasedhim. she took him home and thoughtit was good that he sleep itoff, and the next day when she went to takehim, he was gone. one pill, onetime.
because the er didn'tunderstand how methadone metabolizes in a 16 year old.so i can stand here and talk about heroin, but prescriptionpills are a huge part so if you know anyone thathas them, or you're holdingonto them, get rid of them. because it's a hugeproblem. most recently though, the goodnews is you used to have to go to thedrug drop boxes, whetherthey're at the sheriff'sdepartment or wherever they were placed,but the dea has recently, as ofoctober 9th, authorized manufacturesand
distributors, which is yourretail pharmacies, that theycan now collect controlled pharmaceutical drugsthrough mailbox programs and receptacles. so you'llstart to see this in your cvs',your walgreens, which makes it a loteasier now. you go get a prescription, and you drop offyour old ones. currently there's 13 bills pending. we've done alot of work at the state houselevel the specific bills i'd like tomention is house bill 508 and 529 whichthe attorney general is supporting. the first bill, 508
boosts the criminal penaltiesfor drug dealers found guilty of contributing to overdosedeaths. this bill would expand the definition of murder toinclude defendants who play arole in an overdose death throughtrafficking. and 529 includes the offense ofcorrupting another with drugs knowingly, or furnishingadministering to a pregnantwoman, and inducing or causing a pregnantwoman to use a controlled substance. and most recently,our newest initiative is we've formed anoverdose prevention taskforce,and it's a
15 member task, and our goal isbasically to come up with a protocol. wecurrently don't have one inohio for heroin related fatalities andfor reporting them inreal-time. the attorney general believesit's critical that lawenforcement policy makers and members ofthe public have up to date access to date regarding drugoverdose trends so that we can address these problems asthey're happening. we need notonly to be timely but also have uniformdata as a state-wide definition for overdose deaths.the attorney general
is very passionate abouteverything that we can do in our office to help throughlaw enforcement educationtraining and other resources to addressthis epidemic. and in closing, i'd like to saythat not only by workingtogether will we beat this epidemic. wecan arrest, sentence, legislate, or treatour way out of it. all of these strategies arepart of the answer. thank you. heidi thank you very much. verymuch appreciate it. some good comments there. reallymuch appreciate you being herefor us today.
and we appreciate the entire,really the attorney general'soffice is very aggressive right now,and that aggression is appreciated very much. nextup on our list here is going to be andrea boxill. andrea ispart of the governor's cabineton opiate action team, and she'sgonna make a few comments forus as well. please welcome her. so, when i was hired, three months ago by the governor'soffice, i was in shock. i was in shock because the workthat i had formerly done wasworking
in the criminal justice systemwas specialized docketprograms. and what i did was i ran a court for the mentallyill, i ran a court for drugaddiction, i ran a court for women who were victims of humantrafficking, as well asveterans. within the first 6 months ofrunning our long-term drugcourt, the prosecutor came to me and said, "you have to dosomething different forheroin." and seeing that in the disease and treatmentworld, we treat the disease of addiction. we don't treat adrug, we treat a disease. and i said, "well you've gottaconvince me that there's aneed." and they handed me astack of data that said, "here's theneed. here's how many
overdoses we're dealing withevery day." and so as i starteddissecting it was almost like a no brainerin this regard: back in 2012, now heidi just gaveyou data from the most recent2014. so you should understand theprogression. in 2012, we had 5 ohioans die every day fromoverdose. what was the number you gave today? 17. that's tripled, right? so andthen we had 10 people a day who were arrested forpossession of heroin, not justpills. the number of ohioansdischarged from the hospitalfor
opiate abuse, just dischargedfrom the hospital per day, was62. i would be really curious aboutwhat that number is today. people were admitted to thepublic behavioral healthcaresystem, that's all yourtreatment agencies, right? every day, 72people who were addicted to opiates, includingpharmaceutical heroin as well as street heroin. new ohioansreceive opiates in very high doses.every day, 893 people. it is so hard forme to hold this so i gotta movea little bit. cause it frustrates the heckout of me, and i have to watchmy language in my new
job, but it frustrates the heckout of me because there's acouple of things that we need to be very honest aboutas a society. heroin is nothing new to thissociety. what's new is the community that it'seffecting, you see, because inthe 70s, when it was affecting theafrican-american community, andwe were losing 200 people per year, it was no big deal.but in 2012 we lost 1,914 people now we have a problem. it's notin the inner city, it's in thesuburbs, now we have
a problem, right? the truth isthe problem was always there. itwas there back in the days whenwe had the opiate railroads. right? when we had to get themhigh enough to continuebuilding our railroads, and they broughtit with them, so is it reallybad? we're not really exploiting them, are we? andthen we start giving it to the housewives for their hysteria.some would call it trauma. some would call itpost-partum depression, but we started treating them, we saidwell we can't do that anymore.and so then we had the french connection. we talkabout the mexican cartel. letme tell you, the
original cartel was through thefrench connection and that wasthe mafia, and that came through new york now you're getting itthrough the southern route.there is a business to be had in addiction for adrug dealer. and if i'm a predator, whichmost drug dealers are, see thisbrother sitting here nodding his head, i knowexactly where to go to the miserable children in thesuburbs who are disconnectedfrom their families and totally connected toelectronics. you are mycustomer. as a matter of fact, i'm gonnadeliver it to you. i'll waitfor your parents to leave, you just hit me up onmy cell, it's a burner.
i'm going to deliver it to you,when i'm done, i'm out. and then when you come to me and yousay, "you know what, i don'twant to use anymore." this ishow skilled these businesspeopleare. don't just consider themdrug dealers, this is business. i'm going to give you one morepill, or one more balloon, and i'm gonna tell you, "don'tworry about it, you don't evenhave to pay me. i know you outof it." what's that gonna do? what'sthat gonna do? you comin' back for more. and ijust gave you that last dose for free. i can convince you tosteal. to sell your body. when istarted the catch docket,
the average age of the womenwho were being trafficked was 44. most of them had 2 prisonstints. the primary drug ofabuse was crack, alcohol, heroin. lastyear, 80 percent of our clients,their primary drug of abuse waswhat? i can't even hear you. y'allact like this is...i'm nottalking 'bout peanut butter and jelly i'm talkin' 'boutbangin' dope. you are losingpeople. and you're whispering, and i,as a trafficker, rely on your whisper. i want you tokeep it secret, i want you yo be ashamed, i don'twant you to talk to your kidsabout it,
i need to make money off ofyou. cause you've got money to spare, right? so when itfinally comes full-circle, and now we're dealing with adifferent drug dealer, and iknow the doctor is gonna talk aboutit, but i'm gonna call it forwhat it's worth. when you have a house bill that'scoming up to prosecute a drugdealer, 508, guess who else is your primarydrug dealer, your doctor. she's gonna teach you what thatmeans today. in our country, we don't wantto feel pain. "i don't want to hurt. myniece, 18 years old,
got her wisdom teeth pulledout. guess how many pills of oxy she got? what? 30. do you know when i got myteeth pulled they gave me an ibuprofen, acoke, and a smile and said,"have a good day"? right? but we don't wanna feel. not only do we not wanna feelpain, we don't wanna feel good,we just want to be numb. and we prey uponthat. and so here we have a doctor,who in all good faith, doesn't wantyou to deal with pain because
they're also measured by yourpain for their job. so when my mother, may she restin peace, and you know shejust, we just had a service for heryesterday. my mother wasdiagnosed with cancer lung cancer. she also had it onher spine as well as her skull. and the first question theyasked her, they do a little questionnaire. they asked her aquestionnaire. how do we deal with your pain. and she,in all honesty, look at said, "i shouldn't have any?" becausewhen you ask a question like that, it kind of impliesthat you shouldn't have it, orif you do have it, it should
be minimal. no, you have cancer. it is eating away at you, itshould hurt. you break your leg, it should hurt. that's nota chronic disease. the body knows how to heal,there are certainly othermedications that can be used, othertreatment modalities that canbe used. but quickly, if my job is on the line, and my milliondollar education, and it all comes down to you thepatient, in acute care, inacute crisis, saying, "i thought my pain wasreally managed." then i'm gonnamake sure you don't feel pain. right? so, the next
thing that we have to do isunderstand the definition so we've go the drug dealerwho's waiting for you to getaddicted to the pill because we know the street value. i'mbreaking this down so thatfamily members know. i can sell a perc for 80, apercocet pill. but i can take that 80 dollarsand get me 8 balloons of heroin which could potentially keep mehigh, somebody say it, 8balloons of heroin. what'd you say? well for some people it's aday. and for some people it's acouple of days, and for some people it'sa week. or for some, they'llbang it all at once.
and they're not coming back,right? so, there's profit on either side. you haveto deal with the rug dealer,you also have to deal with ifyou have medications in your house,get rid of them. get rid of them the right way.you can go to any pharmacy nowbased on the dea and the federal law, get rid ofthem. don't see it as a loss of money. so aside fromdealing with the factor of where we're getting it, frompill to heroin, we also have todeal with the fact that this is a chronicprogressive disease that can ultimately lead todeath. we certainly have
examples as with cole,danielle's son, there was nochronic progression about it. you're taking achance. you take one pill, you're taking a chance,you bang dope one time, you'retaking a chance. you don't knowwhat it's been cut with, you don't know thepurity level of it, thereforeyou can die. that's the honest truth. whatwe're doing at the department of mental health andaddiction services is what werecognize is the human condition is not justabout the disease of addiction or the disease ofdepression, right? or the disease of mental health. wehave to look at thisholistically. i
found it interesting, and ifthere's any medical students inhere i would implore you to look into the overwhelmingnumber of the people in thedrug court once they got sober, themajority were diagnosed withocd, ptsd (post-traumatic stressdisorder), or major depressive disorder recurrent. but becausewe in this country disdainmental illness the way that we do, some peoplewould rather be a dope addict than to be diagnosed with amental illness because yougonna judge me harshly. i'm diagnosed with depression. does it invalidate anythingthat i've said to you today?does it make you
more skeptical. i have tattoosall up and down my arm, do you see me differently? we have tobe honest about how we view this disease. we see it as acommunity, as a culture, separate from us. and when wedo that, we're pushing theseyoung people further into isolation and insulation,and guess what the disease of addiction needs? "i need you tobe isolated. i need you to feel ashamed. i need you to feelguilty." and i absolutely give families permission, wheni did direct service. i wouldsay, "if your family is part of the problem, get thehell away from them. becausesome
families need you to be sick sothat no one looks at what is really going on withinthe family system. what we're doing on the statelevel through the governor'scabinet on opiate action team the doctor just gave me a greatsuggestion and i'm going backwith it, we need doctors onthis team. because they know thehistory and they know how totreat. the first thing that we'redoing is we're looking at themom's project. you talked about years ago, the onlydisease we've ever titled achild after was a crack baby. well we havechildren who are being born with opiates in their system. weknow we can treat them
we know that they're not doomedfor life, but we need to beable to identify them and getthem treatment and not criminalizethe disease. if a mother comesforward and says, "i am sick, i don'twant to go through thewithdrawal, i don't want my child to beborn this way" the last thingyou want is for children'sservices to come in and swoop that childaway. because what's thelikelihood of her recovery? very slim. then you've alsogiven trauma to the child, andwhat did i already say? many of these individuals arealready dealing with trauma, sowe need to treat holistically. that's our mom'sproject. it's a way to identifystandards of care to have the best outcome forthe mother as well as thechild. the
next program we have is calledthe addiction treatment pilotprogram. this was money thatcame down from the state, thesenate, through the governor'soffice as well, and what we'redoing is again, we need to pilotprograms in criminal justicewe're not gonna arrest our way out ofit, but we have a captiveaudience. and the idea is we need to providetreatment options and if we canget it to them while they'reincarcerated, they're lesslikely the national statistic is, mostoverdoses will occur within 72hours of being discharged from jail. so if ican get you the treatment whileyou're in jail, especially medicatedassisted treatment,
then what's the likelihood thatwe can keep you alive? andyou're gonna hear a debate between doctors,you're gonna hear doctors.you're gonna hear some say, " idon't like suboxone,buponorophene, or vivitrol or dadada." can i bereal with you? i haven't hadany data that says somebody is overdosed on suboxone. doesit have a street value?absolutely. one of the clever marketingthings is to go ahead and builda divide between medications, right, to tell youthis medication is better thanthis one. the bottom line is,people need choice. not every personcan do vivitrol, not everyperson can to suboxone. the other program wehave is project dawn which is directly related tonaloxone/narcan. all
of these words, by the way,sound very similar so researchwhen you're looking into it. most important ofnarcan naloxone, and we're dispensingthese in hospitals as well, is to make sure that you stillcall 9-11 after you dispense it. whatwe've found are those whoactually still die as a result of the overdose did notcall 9-11 after dispensing it it prevent the overdose fromhappening. remember, here's the brain, here's the drug, thedrug is in there. what thenarcan's gonna do is get inthere and break it up for 7 minutes so that
overdose can absolutely stilloccur. so it's important tocall. that's project dawn. we have prescriber educationcommittee which i'm gonna lobbythat dr. islam gets on which helps us developprescribing guidelines becausethe bottom- line is, if these doctors don'tfigure it out with all thiseducation, then the governor gets tofigure it out in the form ofmaking a state rule. so, we can ask we can give information, but atthe end of the day, if it can'tbe done, we're talking about the lives of ourbrothers, our sisters, ourdaughters, our sons, our mothers, and our fathersbecause this isn't justeffecting young people.
the last one is ourintra-diction group through theg co, law enforcement, which, it'svery difficult, and i know i'm probably gonna scarethe heck outta the officers inthe room, but i'm gonna be honest with you. you know thesongs "the snitches getstitches?" stitch me up, i'm telling. ifyou know if you know of a drug dealer of a doctor who's notprescribing the way thatthey're supposed to, you haveto share that information. ma...oh mygosh, did you see that? heidi introduced you to yourare director. you contact
the ag's office on any doctorwho you suspect is handing thisout like candy which is essentially whatit comes down to, they're goingto investigate it. if you have a drug dealer or atrap house that's in your neighborhood, call your locallaw enforcement. you have the right to be safe,your children have the right tobe safe, but this is not a 1 brush stroke that just doesone thing. there have to be 6, 7, 20 different interventionpoints, and what we've donetoday is just giving you a few, but ithink doctor's probably goingto share so much moreinformation for you to prevent yourself oryour family from getting to
this point. i thank you for youtime. thank you. that demonstrates her passionfor this. just had a rough week, arough week for her family, and she's still heretonight, so thank you very muchfor that. we appreciate itandrea. dr. islam is going to be net.she's gonna talk a little bitmore about the medical side of this, and itsound like you got a new jobhere tonight all of a sudden,didn't ya? get recruited? that's good.welcome dr. islam. thank you so much. i'm heretoday to explain, give the medicalperspective on addiction, on
opiate addiction and alsoprimarily to give you hope, and to make youunderstand that this is...totake away the stigma of addiction.i've practiced addiction medicine for over 20 years andit was never this bad. now we have a situation where i goevery day to a room, to an exam room,and find someone originally it was, about a yearago, 3 times a week, but now it's essentially every day thatsomeone is sitting sobbing or stunned that they lostsomeone to a heroin
overdose. it's extremely rampant and i think it's a fabulousturn out today, and i think by the effect of propagation ofinformation, it is incumbent on us to tellour friends and our family that this is a disease. this isnot something, like someone has high blood pressure anotherone has diabetes. thisparticular person has addiction, and icannot begin to appreciate or salute enough thecourage of parents, being a mother, mydaughters are here as
well, they are close to the ageof marin, and of what parents go through whenthey lose loved ones. so this is rightly called anepidemic and it is extremely, extremely urgentthat we address it, andprimarily if you go away today with onemessage, that message is that it is a disease. please understandthat it's a disease. it took us of many, many decades, it tookcelebrities to understand that depression is a disease.otherwise it was something tobe ashamed of, so it was somethingthat couldn't be treated. youneeded
celebrities like marie osmondand tipper gore to tell people that this was adisease. so, similarly, addiction is a disease and i'lltry to explain it with myslides. what do i...? would you advanceit for me? so i'm gonna go from the bad news to the good news,and my slides background willchange i tried. so the bad news is:daily overdose deaths and the figures are so dynamic andso changing that what i have here,at least 4 opioid overdose
deaths every day, is an oldfigure. as you can tell, from what we heard just now,that is dated. so from 2010-2012, the death rate fromheroin overdose for the 28 states doubled from 1 to 2.1 per 100,000. so, you canimagine i just want you to do the math.in every county, in every state how much that is. andinterestingly, the death from painkilleroverdoses declined,
minimally, from 6-5.6. but ifyou combine the two, and take the population of aparticular state, you can see that there is areason that this is called anepidemic. so how did we get here? like they say, the road to hellis paved with good intentions. so, 20 years ago,about 15, 20 years ago, the medical system taught its residents and physicians thatwe must consider pain as a fifth vital sign. justlike we have pulse, bloodpressure,
temperature, respiration. sopain is a fifth vital sign andyou will frequently go to the hospital and find anurse ask you that you have pain and they will ask youto score it with the smileyfaces or with the 1-10. and then developed because there's the good, thebad, and the ugly everywhere, in every profession and everycommunity. so you had compassionate prescribing. sookay, like you go to as she said so well, that dentists previous just gaveibuprofen and you were on yourway.
but now, you get percocet oryou get vicodin. and so you had physicians whowere treating appropriately but then came about oxycontinpill mills. all over the country, and wehave a ....had a tremendous concentration in southern ohio,and now that's been substituted with heroin. andthese oxycontin pill mills created, reaped so much havocthat i had a saying that there are 3 things that someonewill sell their mother for, andthat is heroin, oxycontin, and cocaine.and
in the old days, people didn't,we didn't have these overdosedeaths. i just don't remember 20 years ago theseopioid-overdose deaths. so the company quickly changedthe formulation of oxycontin they didn't take it away, theychanged the formulation, so ifyou crush it you can't, it turns into a gel.you can't inject it or snortit. but it's still available forpeople who'd like to take itorally. there was a government crackdown on opioid prescribing, so this is just amarket, it's a market economy i guess everything is,so people switched from, if youcan't get
oxycontin, what can you get?and what can you get so cheaply but heroin? and heroin,people... i was so pained to know of marin's neck marks. patientsdon't realize that they start injecting.first they snort and there's a hierarchy even among drugusers. that, "oh no, no no, i ,of course not, i would never do iv. iwould never shoot." but they do. eventually they do. they starthere peripherally on the arms,and then they go here on the neck and thedome of the lung is very close
to the vein here, and i haveseen patients who suddenly collapseoff the lung because they hitthe top of the lung. so, there is nodanger, there is no limit that a heroin addict willnot go to to get to use heroin. i always ask a patient whenthey first come into theoffice, that how did your addiction begin. was itrecreational? was it peerpressure? was it prescribed for pain? andalmost invariably now the answer is prescribed,"i was prescribed
medication. opioid medications." and that is why i consider itan iatrogenic disease iatrogenic disease means onethis created by physicians, bythe medical system. so, when wecreated the oxycontin, and pain as a fifth vital sign,we went on and then we are now in a situation wherewe do have a prescription painkiller epidemic as well,but heroin use has obviously topped it,and i think the responsibility with treatingthis lies largely
to a great extent, onphysicians, because i think that it is only fairthat if you create something,you should step up to the plate and treatit as well. the disease that doesn'tdiscriminate. there was a time, and i really,really appreciate the comments which were so onpoint, and so courageous because now we are dealing withthis disease because it is not a downtown disease.it is a suburban disease and yourprimary
victim is white, but it can be anyone. someone, the checkoutclerk at the grocery store, student, lawyer, homemaker,doctor, businessman, anyone it just does not discriminate.all races all religions. a lot of thesepeople, i call them people who are very very functioning. aslong as they get their fix, and their dose, they performcomplicated jobs. and, um, so they are likely tobe employed, and likely to be insured, and so this isnot a
disease, and i really getreally upset when physicianssay, oh they make money off of the addictedpatient, but what they say is, "he's just an addict." and ihad a very very sad situation when i used to workat sassi in methadonemaintenance, there was a boy and he was 15 and he had been prescribedoxycontin by a primary carephysician in toledo, and he said, "iwonder, i would go in there and i would say that ihave abdominal pain and he'dgive me percocet. and then he would, he wouldn't examineme, he would just take my
money and he would just give methe percocet, and he said, iknow he has a son who is my age. i wonderwhether he would do that for his son." so in that prescribing,in those 30 percocet or 60, 120whatever. we've basicallywritten away a person's entire life. go ahead. so, like it was mentioned, it's a chronic brain disease.we have extensive studies whichshow that it is a neural-bio-chemical
basis for addiction, so when iwas given percocet for after a c-section, it didn't doanything for me. but for ourbrain, that has there are familialfactors and there is a rewardcircuit. and the reward circuitbasically tells the addictedpatient that "i have to have more of theopioid. otherwise, i can't make it."and we have studies which show that the opioidaddicted brain is verydifferent it has structural changes.there are changes in thereceptors of the opioid addicted brain compared to anormal brain. and the saddest
part is, that as time goes on,the opioid receptors get blunted, so thepatient uses, the person uses, and they get thisincredible high if they haveall of the factors that align with opioidaddiction, and the sad part is that they chase that first high. and thatis how overdose deaths happen. a very important slide which iwant you to go away with today that some people havetype 1 diabetes, other peoplehave high blood pressure, or asthma, andthis is a very interestingslide,
which tells you that there aresuch similar characteristics so there is a familial nature,it's heritable. it's influenced by behavior.they are well studied, predictable, there areeffective treatments, and very,very important to know that there isno known cure for type 1diabetes, or hypertension, or asthma, andneither is there for addiction, but they are allimminently treatable. so, you need continued care,continued treatment, and very importantly if youlook at the relapse rates,
they're very similar. 40-60percent for addiction, and 30-70percent for those otherdiseases. and also, the diseases worsen if they're not treated.so another message i want youto go home with today is that this is avery treatable disease. it'snot something that we should feelthat, "oh i've got it, it can't be treated." it'simminently treatable and wehave, and i have later on slides of wonderfulrecoveries. so now my background haschanged because no is comingthe good news.
opiate withdrawal does not kill, but, like i said earlier,chasing the first high andtaking higher and higher doses ofopioids does. patients who are addicted, theyhave a very, a lot of them have a very lowtolerance for discomfort andthey think that if i don't get the, whatever itis, if it's a drug or heroin, i'm going to die.and it's so poorly taught in medical schools, ihave medical students here in the room, it's so poorlytaught in medical schools
that physicians themselves,graduated physicians, get really nervous when someonecomes to them in opioidwithdrawal because they think that, "oh my god,the patient is really going todie." the word cold-turkey comes from opiate withdrawal and thesymptoms are goose-bumps, theperson feels hot and cold, they sweat,they have diarrhea, they'renauseated, they throw up all over the place,they have headaches, musclepain, and bone pain. and there are certain drugs,heroin and oxycontin among them, are the two thatwithdrawal is...methadone.
these three the withdrawal isso, so, so terrible that thepatient is absolutely convinced thatthey are going to die. butunless the patient is 95 years old and dies ofdehydration, they're not gonna die. so even thoughaddiction is a brain disease, there is definitely an elementof choice. if i was just togive you a rough thing, 70 percent, 60 percentis disease, and 30-40 percent is choice. sohere you see choice, and i really hope that you willencourage family and friends to seek treatment. i hope thatyou will promote that addictionis
a brain disease, and primarilythat we have treatment, and we have life transformations.thank you. dr. islam, thank you. somewonderful information there. we're gonnakeep it moving here as quicklyas we can. probably to the most nervousperson up here, maybe even more so than me, but he's gotsome friends here to back himup and i think everyone here in theroom is gonna back him up aswell. everyone, with a personal story about hisstruggles and what he's goingthrough right now please welcome jordan fleitz.
i'd like to thank you guys forthe opportunity to be here. it's amazing to be able to seethis many people noticing this problem that'sbeen around for quite a while. cause i stopped using about a year and a half ago andeverybody i know was using. i don't know, it's cool that ihave i could probably name off 20people in this room that are onthe same path as me. and it's cool. it shows
that it's possible and it'svery realistic to stay sober. i came from a good home. good family, raised in thesuburbs. nothing really traumatichappened in my childhood. but once i got into high school, istarted drinking, and smoking weed, anddoing all the smaller time drugs. it eventually progressedbecause the things i was
told about these other, likealcohol and marijuana and all this, right away itdidn't turn out to be what ithought it was gonna be or what i wastold it was gonna be. so, i was instantly like, ikind of wanna see what the rest islike, you know. cause who knows if these stigmas arereal? and eventually, the drugs justweren't enough for me, and i had to keepupgrading. i ended up... i don't know i think it startedwith prescription coughmedicine really.
i didn't realize what i wasdoing. but when i was younger i woulddrink the cough syrup that i got for mycolds or sinus infections andit had codeine in it, or hydrocodone which are bothopiates, didn't realize it. and i love it. and then lateron in life, i tried percocets, just for fun i guess, i wasn'tprescribed them or anything, but with that, shortly after,
i started doing them a lot andthen that's when they reformulatedthe pills, and probably withina month or two i was shootin' up. doin'heroin. shooting up pills, because icouldn't afford to pay for these pills that justraised double in price that i was used to taking everyday. i don't know, over a period ofprobably 2 years i was admitted into facilities about 7 times, and
that's kind of what shows methat it's, i don't know there was a long time where iwanted to be sober, but forsome reason, i just couldn't do it. so, luckily my family was patient with me,my friends were patient withme, and my mom's even here todaysupporting me. so that's cool, but the patience it really helped. i don't know,it had to get to the point to where i...nothing anybody toldme was going to keep me sober and i had to learn on my ownthat, like, i was
miserable and any way i triedwas not going to work. i had tried the maintenanceprograms. i have specific feelings aboutthat. i don't know, it was...it's hard to say, "i'm gonna keep yousober by giving you a drug." and that'smy view on it. and i don't know. indefinite suboxone.
that's also something thatworries me because what's really the differencebetween that and indefinite heroin use? besides the factthat it will kill you. butyou're not gonna be happy,you're not. it really took me to learn howto...i had to be willing to try to meetpeople who were doing the... who were sober and figured outhow to life a happy lifestyle. and i had to follow what they did,and in that case i ended up working a 12-stepprogram, and i've beencompletely
sober. i haven't drank, ihaven't smoked, i haven't doneanything. and *clapping * but it took a while to get tothat point, i mean, i had totry it and i always ended up back atheroin. that's just what itwas. i can't drink, because i will end up backdoing heroin. and i do stupidthings when i'm on heroin. i do really stupid things wheni'm on heroin. and i don't know, i just wanted to emphasize thatit's like, once you're in, active use, it's...i don'tbelieve it's a choice
of whether you use or not. alot of people view it that way,and especially people who don't understand,but like, if it was a choicewhen i went to jail i would have gotten sober. iwouldn't have overdosed 70 or 3 days after i got out. and that was a treatmentfacility jail. it's tough. and i think that it's hard to say what the community can really do becauseit's such a
personal decision, and it'ssuch a personal journey that,like, you have to come to that conclusionwithin yourself, and that heat from the law, thatheat from your family, none of that's gonna get yousober, and none of that's gonnakeep you sober in my experience. so i don't know it's just, it'snice to be able to be here and it's just amazing that thismany people are here. really, because, i mean thishas been going on for a while.
and there's been some, i'veseen so many people's lives ruined to this.and i know where i was at and i was miserable, and that misery is what got mesober. if i wasn't miserable using, i'd probablystill be using. so, it's just i don't know, i don't reallyknow where i was going withthis. cause i'm nervous, but i'mgonna pass. thank you guys. as real as it gets right there.you did good, too.
you were all nervous about itand heck, you did an awesomejob. we'll keep things rolling here. we're gonna go next totom. tom obviously with thefire department. he's gonna address kind of the front line,paramedic, medical end of this, and some of thethings that developed herefairly recently that they're seeing not only onthe street, but some of thethings that they're able tobring to the table now that they didn't havebefore. so please welcome tom. good evening, it's a privilegeto be here and i've learned a lot from the storiesi've hear tonight. they askedme to give a pre-hospital perspective, andmy comments are gonna be brief.
there's been some recentpublicity for bowling green fire due to in the last couple weeks we'vehad what we call a narcan save. or we've gotten a phone callfor someone whose overdosed onan opiate or opioid and we'veadministered narcan in the field and restored their breathing.and of course, we transport them to the hospital.someone mentioned type 1 diabetes tonight. and in theold days, we would start an iv and give someonedextrose, and when they'd comearound, we'd always
transport them to the hospital.and things have changed alittle bit in that regard that now we can give dextrose, andif the person has someone there with them. we can leavethem. i'll talk a little bitabout narcan and my thoughts on it inpre-hospital use. for those of you that aren'taway, there's opioid receptors in your centralnervous system, and that's whatthese opiates and opioids attach to and cause theeffects, and one of the effects that we see,particularly in overdose orabuse situations is respiratorydepression, and when thathappens, that's when
family or friends find theperson breathing very few times aminute, blue, pale, and call 9-11, and that's whenwe respond. we give narcan a lot. it's not just...we don't use it just foropioid abuse. we also use it diagnostically,and if we have a patient that'sunconscious, we'll give narcan just to seeif the reason that they'reunconscious is because they've overdosed onopioids, much like we give unconscious peopledextrose to rule out that theyhave
diabetes, and that they havehypoglycemia. so we've had 4 this year wherewe were called in time and responded. and our responsetime in the city of bowlinggreen is about 4 minutes so we get therepretty quickly. narcan, our administration has changed.heroin's not new, narcan's notnew. narcan's been around about 4 years, and as wasmentioned earlier, i've been at this about 30, andthere's been narcan in our drugboxes for each of those 30 years soit's not anything new. one ofthe things that has changed is that we're ableto give it intranasally now,and
so before we would have tostart an iv and that took a fewminutes, and then draw up the meds, andadminister it and that took afew more minutes, and you know minutesand seconds count whensomeone's overdosed. so now we've had 4 this year.unfortunately, we've also had two that we werenot contacted in time. and you know, that's disturbingto us, and that's why we'reparticipating in forums like this. i've alsoheard narcan referred to as a miracledrug, or a treatment for heroin overdose,and i wanna
impress upon you that we trainour people that really, allnarcan does is reverse the respiratorydepression and give folksanother chance. one of the things thatcame up in the taskforce meeting waspre-hospital use of narcan by people other thanparamedics, and what were my thoughts on that?and again, these are personal thoughts. we can respond infour minutes. we work very closely with thepolice department and they'realways with us on these calls. and we're fortunate herethat
we have a fire department thatcan respond immediately to acall for help. other parts of the country,primarily rural, there isn't a firedepartment that can respond as quickly aswe can, and again, becauseminutes and seconds count, it's possible that policeoffices could get there andadminister this drug because it's assimple now as spinning a littledevice onto the syringe that creates a mistwhen you inject it into the patients nose and it'sabsorbed into the nasal mucosa,and the way that narcan works isthose same receptor sites inthe central nervous system
that the heroin or otheropiates attach to, narcan also has an affinityfor those and will attach to those receptor sitesand block the effects. and that in turn causes the respiratorydepression to be reversed, and they come around.and they come around in acouple minutes: 2-8 minutes i think is what theysay. there's also a move like was mentionedtonight, to put narcan in the hands of familymembers and friends, and you know, again, my onlyconcern with this, and someonementioned the
shame and the stigma, is if narcan is administered bysomeone who is not apre-hospital provider, or an emergency responder, myconcern personally, is that narcan could be given,and the patient would come around, and then someone maynot call 9-11 for definitive care because ofshame or stigma and that kindof thing. and something that people don'tthink about is the half-life ofnarcan is occasionally shorter than the half-life ossome of these opioids, and whatthat means is we give narcan and thepatient comes around,
their respiratory depression isreversed, they may regainconsciousness, and unless they get definitivecare, it's possible that thatnarcan will wear off and the symptomsof the overdose, therespiratory depression, will reoccur. so someone couldcome around, and then go backto sleep and not wake up, and you know, sothat's one of the concerns thatwe have about pre-hospital use byother than ems personnel. it certainly is not, there's nomagic to this drug. i mean, it simply reverses the effects ofthe respiratory depression, so we've offered toparticipate in any training ifit
does start to make its way intocommunity as a resource for family members andfriends, we're certainlywilling to support that any way we can,but again, we recognize as pre-hospital providers thatthis is not a cure for heroin.it's not a... it doesn't fix an overdose. and often times, 9 to 1 and thehospital providers are here tonight,they're the portal to get the help that they need to battlethis disease, and we recognize it as a disease. and that'ssomething that's changed alittle bit in ems as well.
so, we're all here to do hat we can and if anybody has anyquestions, i'm happy to answerthem. i know that was a prettysimple explanation of narcan, butwe're using it a lot more and unfortunately, not justdiagnostically now. we'rerecognizing heroin and opiate overdoses, and was mentioned aboutprescription drugs, and i'lljust add one of our narcan saves was an elderly woman who took an extra dose of her opioid, itwas prescribed. and accidental, but she alsoexhibited
some symptoms of respiratorydepression, and so this isn'tjust something that we walk in and recognize it asa heroin overdose. you know,we're giving this on more occasions and it affects all ages, and we haveto recognize that. so, thankyou for your time. thanks tom, appreciate that very much. next we're gonnabring up the law side of this. obviously, this is front lines.we're talking about something herethat obviously is climbing, growing, exponentiallyunfortunately, and these arethe guys that
have to see it, not only upfront, but have to try andprevent it, so these guys are working on multiple fronts,so quick round of applause towelcome deputy chief hetrick please. thank you all for being heretonight. my purpose is to share with youa little bit about the crimetrends that we're seeing as a result of heroin and otheropiates. we as law enforcement, areunder no illusion that this isan issue that we can solve or thatwe're even scratching thesurface with. i see some colleagues back here
chief bear from northbaltimore's here. yeah, he was one of the earlier jurisdictions to deal withheroin in wood county and you know, what i'm gonnaprovide for you is just kind ofa snapshot of what we've seenin bowling green. you know, i started in 1996, and occasionally, we would runacross somebody who had you know, codeine, someone who had acouple syringes in their pocket, we might find a spoonin a search of a car with a
funny burnt area on the bottomof it, but it really wasn't aconcern to us. it was pretty muchanecdotal. we didn't see a lotof it. it wasn't a bowling green typeproblem. it was a larger, inner-city problem until 2012,that all changed. we started having overdoses. in 2013, we had 8. this year the numbersaren't in, but i can tell you that it's gonna beconsiderably more than that. the character of the kinds ofcrimes associated
with the heroin problem, youknow, we've always hadshoplifting, we've always had burglaries,car break-ins, but the character of those have startedto change, and we started seeing people stealing,returning things for gift cards. they were using those toget their heroin. now the heroin users are lookingfor discarded receipts. they'regoing and taking those receipts asshopping lists. they're goingand stealing, and returning forcash. cash is a lot more attractiveto a dealer than
a gift card from target, sothat's one of the things we're seeing.burglaries, we saw a lot of people breakinginto houses, stealingelectronics, stealing guns, those kinds of things.that's changed a little. now wehave people going in and just takingpurses for cash, looking for cash leaving everything else.in and out quick, not takingcredit cards because you know you can track somebodyusing a credit card that's beenstolen, so that's kind some of thedifferences that we've seen. this summer we experienced 3very significant robberies inbowling
green. one of those was jackspharmacy at the hospital. it was a pharmacyrobbery for morphine. and the suspect was known tothe people who worked at jacks pharmacy cause that'swhere he went to get hisprescriptions, so they knew whoit was. he didn't care. he led us on a 100 mph chase down route 6.wrong lane, by the edgewood, around the curve,just a complete disregard for the safety of others. the onlything that stopped him was he wiped out a cornfield nearpemberville. after a 6 hourmanhunt,
we finally found him when hewas trying to get about fromthe cornfield. but right now, he's looking at10 years in prison for this, and it wasall because he was addicted toheroin. he needed that fix. all thesethings show me one thing, and that'sdesperation. these people aredesperate. the risk reward processes thatpeople go through when they try to reason through whetheror not to do crime are totallyout of balance with heroin. the risk doesn'teven enter into it. it's all rewardfor them, so
you know, think about thenicest person you've ever met and then picture them going in,robbing some place with afirearm. that's what heroin does topeople, and we understand it'sa sickness. we understand that law enforcement, you know we'regonna come in, we're gonna tryto do our best to make surethose people get locked up. well, that looksgreat in theory, but it doesn't work. and i'll get intoa little more on that in a minute. one of thesubjects that we had one other robberies with this summer hada $200 a day habit
and what that translates into is a tenth of a gram for heroin isabout 10-20 dollars. 1 gram is 80-120 dollars, 120being on the high end being eitherfentanyl or something that'sreferred to as china-white, really pure heroin. but, you know, it started withthe pill addiction during most of these cases, anda pill, 60-80 dollars per pill, so obviously, likewe've said before, what're yougonna go to? you're gonna go to that heroin.it's a lot cheaper. it'll getyou a lot further
well, where to people get the funds, you know. when you startin on this trajectory for addiction, youknow, most people are not criminal types, they're notgonna go out and commit theserobberies. maybe down the road that's where they end up,but initially, they're gonnaget the funds usually from stealingfrom their family members. wehave found that family members have beenreluctant to report minorthefts, you know, they find moneymissing, they suspect it's something, but they reallydidn't wanna report a loved one,
and we understand that that's avery hard to do, but the alternative is you know maybedown the road, something a lotmore serious. if someone in yourfamily is a victim of a burglary andyou know that there's somebodyelse in your family who has an addiction, we havefound, in wood county, thatthat's a good suspect for that burglary, thata lot of times, that's whowe're looking for. we're gonna find that personand they're gonna be the oneresponsible for it. okay, our county jail system has really become kind offorced detox center, right
now as we see it. luckily, inwood county, we do have services available in the jails that aredealing with these addictions while the inmates waiting to beadjudicated. this may be the only way to force somepeople into treatment. the alternative to not usingeverything that society has atits disposal to deal with this addiction isa real possibility of death forthat person. so, when i say we'reunder no allusion that we as people who go out and tryto enforce law can do this one our own, weknow we cannot.
you know, when we talk aboutthe fatalities that haveoccurred, we've had two in the city ofbowling green this year, and you know i'd like to thank thefamily of dan patton jr. forcoming tonight. cause i wanted to talk aboutdan and what happened in hiscase and what we've been able to doto try to try something novel, adifferent approach in dealing with it. we have foundthat the person who sold dan theheroin had left somewhat of a trailfor us,
so we persued that person, andwe had them charged with reckless homicide, and they didplead guilty to that charge.they're awaiting sentencing atthis point, but you know, she's an addict as well we found out,and that's another thing. there'snetworks, these networks,people who use together, deal together, it's intertwined, it locks a lot ofpeople up together. unfortunately in september, wehad a second death. mike wennick passed away as aresult of an overdose.
that investigation's stillpending, and we hope that we're gonna be able tohold somebody accountable forhis death as well. we do a lot of collaboration in wood county. and that's thegreat thing about this county.whenever we have a problem, weall come together to try find solutionsfor it. some of the things thatwe're doing in the bgpd and the county widearea you know, we're ramped up ourinvestigations, we have 6people dedicated to investigating not only drugoffenses, but general offenses. the wood county sheriff'soffice has a core ofinvestigators that work very
closely with our investigatorsbecause this problem is goes outside of wood county.we're finding a lot of it originates in the toledo area,and you know, you would thinkthat you know at traffic stops wewould find heroin, but heroingets used as quickly as it gets boughtmost of the time. so, we're notfinding it, we're finding the needles,we're finding the spoons, we'refinding the paraphernalia, but you know, to hang a chargefor possession you know, i could tell you in2013 we had 1. but we had 8 overdoses and wehad a few more trafficking
offenses, but it's...you knowwe're only scratching thesurface, so we're doing all we can. we'veproposed to get a k-9 program going in the city ofbowling green. it's gonna be adrug k-9. the wood county lawenforcement executives association has discussed andwe're gonna be looking at narcan for some of thecounty agencies that don't havethe quick ems response like we dohere in the city. we partner with serviceproviders. we all sit, the chief who couldn't behere tonight. i'm standing infor him
actually, chief connor has beenon the opiate taskforce forquite a while. i've been part of theprevention coalition, and thisis always at the top of ouragenda, almost every meeting,at least it has been for the last year or two, soagain, we have one of the drop boxes, as doesthe wood county sheriff'soffice for used prescriptionsand on those prescription take backdays, we normally get close to100 pounds. so people are utilizing thoseand that's a good thing, so you know, i hope that this justgives you a little bit of a snap shot of what's goingon in wood county
it is no longer, like has beensaid, a big city problem. it's here, andit's largely a threat to our family members,to the safety of the community, i mean, the pursuitsthat we've had with a couple of these robberysuspects have been just by the grace of god no onewas hurt, so that's something that we takevery seriously, we're veryalarmed by, and hope that you understandwe're doing all we can in thiscounty in law enforcement totry to address it. so thank you.
thank you for joining us and tuning into part 2 of ourseries. we have a long way togo in terms of finishing this epidemic, but programs like theone you just watched help toinform the public on issues that affecteveryone in our communities. besure to tune into part 3 of our series where we willtake an in depth look at thesocial and economic impact this epidemic is havingon our economy and society. for wbgu-tv, i'm steve kendall.we'll see you next time.
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