Ohio AG creating heroin unit to battle statewide ‘epidemic’

Montgomery County has second highest number of heroin deaths so far in 2013.


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Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine promised to spend an additional $1 million a year and use the bully pulpit to fight the heroin addiction scourge facing the state.

DeWine’s office collected data from the 47 county coroners that track heroin-related deaths and found an alarming trend: 292 heroin overdose deaths in 2010, 395 in 2011 and 606 in 2012. Montgomery County saw 93 heroin-related deaths in 2012 and has seen 92 so far this year.

The total deaths caused by heroin in Miami Valley counties from 2010-2013 include: Butler: 99, Clark: 36, Greene: 11, Montgomery: 232, and Warren: 36.

Champaign and Miami county data was not unavailable.

The number of heroin-related cases handled by the attorney general’s crime lab has also climbed: 2,182 in 2010, 2,764 in 2011, 3,819 in 2012 and 4,238 so far in 2013.

DeWine said Mexican drug cartels pushing heroin are full-service entrepreneurs who deliver product directly to the consumers. “No more driving down a dark alley on the wrong side of town. They are full service to the suburbs. And that has been a game changer,” DeWine said.

He called it a “heroin epidemic” that has touched every Ohio community.

“If you don’t think you have a problem in your community, you are simply wrong,” he said Monday at a press conference in Columbus. It is a problem that requires public awareness because law enforcement alone cannot solved the issue, DeWine said.

DeWine pledged to hire more community outreach workers, provide assistance to local law enforcement agencies and add BCI&I agents and lab technicians to work on the heroin problem. The additional spending will come from reallocating money within his existing budget, he noted.

Democrat David Pepper, who is running against DeWine for attorney general in 2014, applauded DeWine’s efforts but said “I’m glad he’s paying attention to it but it’s way late in the game because the problem has been exploding across the state for years. This should have come a long time ago.”

Gov. John Kasich’s administration led a crackdown on pain clinics that fed opiates to addicts. A new law and an executive order signed in 2011 gives the state Medical Board power to oversee pain management clinics and those who work there and enhances a prescription drug tracking program used by pharmacists and prescribers. As “pill mills” closed and licenses were revoked for rogue doctors and pharmacists, scores of opiate addicts turned to heroin as a cheap, readily available substitute.

Montgomery County Coroner Kent Harshbarger, who is chief forensic officer for the Ohio Coroners Association, said as coroners notify families of deaths, they hear tragic stories of how heroin addiction has ripped apart families. The crackdown on prescription drug abuse has fueled heroin use, he said.

“In the streets, we have just switched to what is available and now in the streets heroin has become available,” Harshbarger said. The Miami Valley Crime Lab expanded the age range for which it looks for heroin use to include people over 65 after technicians found a 72-year-old man had overdosed on heroin. “Whereas prescription drug abuse has been contained through the efforts of the AG’s office and law enforcement, we have seen the switch to heroin.”

DeWine said heroin use was trending upward before the crackdown on opiate addiction but it may have caused heroin use to increase even more. He defended the opiate crackdown as still worthwhile because it will eventually reduce the number of people hooked on pain pills who then turn to heroin at some point.

Heidi and T.J. Riggs of suburban Columbus lost their 20-year-old daughter, Marin, to a heroin overdose in January 2012. Stunned by her heroin use and shamed by her addiction, the Riggs family kept the problem quiet until after her death. Now they are speaking publicly to help other families avoid such grief.

“We hope to encourage other parents to talk to their kids and know that heroin is readily available in every suburb of every city in every state for about $10,” Heidi Riggs said on Monday at DeWine’s press conference.

T.J. Riggs said in hindsight the warning signs included unexplained credit card charges, missing cash, erratic behavior and lies. Heidi Riggs added that she saw heroin as a junkie’s drug that her beautiful daughter would never use and she never told Marin that her uncle died of a heroin overdose just 10 years before.

“I had never shared that with her. If I had anything to do over again, I would have shared that with her,” she said.

DeWine said data collected from coroners across the state suggest that 11 people die of heroin overdoses each day and many more survive overdoses in hospital emergency rooms. Even more deaths may be related to heroin use, such as accidental suicides or car crashes, he said.

DeWine said his office stands ready to help. “We want to be the go-to resource for law enforcement and communities struggling with this problem.”

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