Heroin epidemic may be waning

CELINA - The local heroin epidemic may be waning, but law enforcement can't let down its guard against the deadly narcotic or other drugs, according to the local sheriff.

"I'm going to knock on wood while I say it - I do think that we're starting to turn the corner on the heroin (problem)," Mercer County Sheriff Jeff Grey said as guest speaker at the Celina Rotary meeting Tuesday afternoon. "We're seeing less people that are using heroin for the first time. We still have those that are addicted and they're going to be a battle."

The scary thing is officers are starting to see methamphetamine on the streets, he said.

"It's like they go from one thing to the next to the next," he said. "Methamphetamine's not a good thing either."

In 2009, when heroin began seeping into the area, four heroin-related arrests were made in Mercer County, Grey said. Arrests escalated to 107 in 2013 but fell to about 90 last year, according to preliminary statistics.

"I like to view that as we're starting to go the right way because I think everybody knows that we haven't let up on it," he said.

Grey also announced the Coldwater Police Department has joined the Heroin Interdiction Team, a local task force to combat drug use.

"We've got it working really well between the sheriff's office and Celina. Coldwater's been working with us now for the last probably six weeks on things, and I think it's going to be a good thing," he said.

The HIT squad is focused on apprehending users; the county's heroin task force does long-term investigations to round up dealers and traffickers, according to Grey.

"We like to call them the quick-strike force," he said about the HIT squad. "When we put them out, they're out looking for things right now and we have specific areas that we're looking for and they're hitting to try to make arrests that day," he said.

Grey argued users and dealers should be treated differently.

"To me, the user, the ones that want help, we need to try to help. The seller, I'm OK with us locking them up as long as we can lock them up," he said.

Celina and Coldwater police officers on the HIT squad are sworn into the sheriff's office for the specific task of going after drug users, Grey said.

"All the information now comes into the central point," Grey said, explaining officers or deputies are assigned to a case based on its location. "We're sharing more information than we've ever done. Hopefully this is going to lead to us sharing more information, not just drug things, but on a lot of things. We're even talking about equipment and things."

The three departments also share resources to reduce wasteful duplication of equipment, he said.

Grey also spoke about punishment and the importance of empathy.

"And I'm not getting soft on these guys, but that's somebody's kid or somebody's parent," he said.

Treatment is essential to rehabilitating users and it's being introduced in the jail and made available through probation, Grey said. Drugs users are ultimately going to return to the community after serving their sentences and need to be turned in the right direction, he said.

"We aren't going to beat this problem by arresting everybody. I'm sorry, we've locked a lot of people up, we've sent them to prison, we've sent them to jail and they get out and they go right back out and use," he said.

The stigma of a drug conviction makes the transition back to society even harder, Grey said.

"Now I'm not saying that we should make it less than a felony, I don't know what the answer is," he said. "If I arrest you and we hang a felony around your neck, then if we get you off the heroin and you go try to find a job, you're still strapped with that felony around your neck," he said.

Mercer County is fortunate to have employers willing to take a chance on drug convicts, he said. One employer even interviews people in jail.

Under certain circumstances, drug convicts while incarcerated are permitted to leave certain hours for work.

"Now the crazy part of that was that worked great while those guys were in jail, and when they got out of jail and had to manage their own life, a lot of them ended up back in the system. Some of them went back to prison," he said.

He also spoke about the difficult task judges face in determining punishment.

"Sometimes people get upset that a sentence isn't enough and the judges aren't really allowed to talk about it," Grey said.

At times, judges would like to impose a stiffer sentence but the law won't allow them to do so, he said.

"It's not just about punishment. It's about rehabilitation," Grey said.

Grey said some people have told his officers to let overdosing heroin users die rather than administer Narcan, an overdose reversal drug carried by deputies and rescue squad teams, Grey said.

"Our No. 1 priority is to save people's lives. That's before an arrest; that's before anything," Grey stressed.

He compared the situation to an accident involving a drunken driver.

"We still call an ambulance, get them to the hospital, try to save their lives and that's more important than writing that ticket," he said.

"Sometimes we're successful, sometimes we're not. But at least the victim's family knows that everything was done that could be done," he said.

The good news is all Mercer County agencies are working together to fight the drug problem, he said.

"Mercer County is no worse off with heroin than any other county in the state of Ohio, and, really, any other county in the nation," he said. "We just have chosen to be very public about it and tell people what's going on and try new things and try to push things out there."