Springboro, Franklin seek help to battle heroin

Warren County deaths, arrests increase.Communities part of state, national epidemic.


Staying with the story

The Dayton Daily News and WHIO-TV have provided extensive in-depth coverage of the heroin crisis in Ohio and will continue to follow the story.

Heroin deaths and arrests are increasing in Warren County, and two neighboring northern communities are trying to combat the problem.

Franklin and Springboro are separated by Interstate 75 along the Warren-Montgomery county line. Although they have different heroin problems, both are along the path of a drug distribution network that local officials said stretches from Mexico to Dayton and parts between.

“It comes in by Dayton,” Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell said. “That’s the heroin pipeline.”

But users now are found in diverse group of ages, races and economic backgrounds.

“It seems we are seeing more use among people who did not historically fall into the category of heroin users,” Springboro Police Chief Jeff Kruithoff said.

Franklin Police Chief Russell Whitman has sought regional, state and federal help to battle his city’s heroin problem.

“We’re trying to hit it at every level,” Whitman said. “We’re actually making a dent in it.”

Across Warren County, the incidence of heroin overdoses almost doubled from 2012 to 2013. Seven people died from overdoses in 2012, including two in Franklin and three in Lebanon, according to the Warren County Coroner’s Office. In 2013, the number rose to 12 deaths, including two in Franklin and two in Lebanon.

Franklin and Springboro are hardly alone in facing problems stemming from the spread of new, cheaper versions of the highly addictive drug. Heroin is a growing national and state problem, experts said.

“The National Drug Intelligence Center has identified heroin as the number one drug threat in Ohio, surpassing cocaine for the first time,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Pinjuh said in a recent presentation to the FBI National Academy in the Columbus area.

Experts trace part of the heroin problem to the drug’s availability for people seeking alternatives to prescription painkillers, particularly OxyContin.

“After the reformulation of OxyContin, the new heroin, which is cheap, readily available and can be snorted, became the drug of choice,” according to Pinjuh’s presentation.

Heroin in two Warren County cities

The Greater Warren County Drug Task Force spends little time in Springboro, compared with other parts of Warren County, leaving much of the enforcement to the local police, said John Burke, commander of the undercover drug unit and a veteran of 30 years fighting the drug war.

“Franklin is another story,” Burke said.

Last year in Franklin, police reported 52 cases involving possession of Schedule I and II drugs, including heroin; more than five times as many in 2008, according to police records. The city’s recordkeeping systems is unable to provide specific data for heroin possession incidents.

Franklin’s Whitman has appealed to State Sen. Shannon Jones, (R-Warren County) for additional funding to help him pay for overtime needed to continue the crackdown in Franklin.

“Through my research, the heroin is coming from Mexico,” Whitman said. “I would say the distribution network is coming straight into Dayton.”

Whitman said his department has also joined the Dayton-based regional drug task force and a DEA heroin task force in hopes of getting a better grip on the problem. Franklin officers are also aggressively pursuing local suspects and developing informants, Whitman said.

Last month, Jamal N. Brassfield, 31, of Dayton was indicted for trafficking in heroin, cocaine and counterfeit cocaine in August and September in Franklin.

However, a review of Franklin heroin cases resulting in indictments so far this year showed most of the suspects were local residents.

For example, a Warren County grand jury charged Russell Gunther, 33, of Franklin again last month, this time for tampering with evidence in a case stemming from the arrest of five people alleged to have been using and selling heroin. According to police reports, the suspects were dealing drugs from a local apartment taken over by the supsects while the renter was in jail.

“How do we hold people accountable, how do we stop this? I wish I had the answer. There’s too many lives being lost,” Whitman said.

East of I-75 in Springboro, police officials and incident reports indicate officers there are more often are dealing with heroin incidents involving outsiders than Springboro residents.

Over the past six years, in more than three-quarters of the 16 possession of heroin cases reported in Springboro, the suspects were from outside the city, according to police reports.

The suspects came from Miamisburg, New Carlisle, Carlisle, Franklin, Middletown, Fairfield, and in one case, Tennessee, according to reports. In most cases, they were arrested along Central Avenue, the stretch of Ohio 73 heading east into Springboro from I-75.

For example, on Jan. 24, 2010, a couple from Madison, Tenn., was charged with possession of heroin in the Arby’s parking lot on Central, near I-75. According to police reports, both were passed out in a vehicle that was still running and told officers they purchased the heroin at a gas station in Dayton.

“In Springboro, we continue to come across heroin from motorists who are stopped for some other reason,” Kruithoff said, adding he suspected there was a link between increased heroin cases in Springboro and changes restricting the use of prescription painkillers.

Kruithoff, who attended Pinju’s presentation on Ohio’s heroin problem in Columbus, acknowledged limitations in tracking heroin cases in the county due to different record-keeping systems by various police agencies. He said Warren County was currently seeking proposals for a countywide record-keeping system.

Sen. Jones, who lives outside Springboro in Clearcreek Twp., attended a heroin roundtable in August in Franklin, but has so far been unable to help provide additional funding for police. Next year, funding for additional patrols sought by the Franklin police chief can be included in the next biennial state budget, Jones said.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are pursuing a range of approaches, from better systems for tracking prescription painkillers to improved treatment options to community prevention initiatives.

“It’s such a problem, we’re fighting it on many, many, many fronts,” Jones said.

One potential explanation for differences in Springboro and Franklin could relate to Springboro’s higher income levels, enabling drug users there to continue to afford more expensive alternatives rather than seeking out heroin coming into the area from Mexico to feed their habit.

Despite three decades investigating drug cases in the Dayton-Cincinnati region, Burke declined to offer an opinion on whether economic differences in the two communities’ economics helped explain the different heroin problems.

“Does it mean that’s why, I really don’t know,” Burke said.

Burke acknowledged Springboro and Franklin were first in line in Warren County along the heroin pipeline from Dayton via Mexico, but he emphasized that problems from the drug coming to the area continued beyond Franklin and Springboro’s municipal limits.

“ We’ve got a heroin problem all over the county,” Burke said. “It doesn’t just stop there at the expressway.”

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