COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is stepping up the fight against what he says is a heroin epidemic in the state.
DeWine announced yesterday plans to spend $1 million a year to fund a special anti-heroin task force that will target street dealers, organized crime and provide community outreach to slow a heroin overdose rate that has doubled since 2010.
“We have to fight this epidemic at the grassroots level – community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood. We have to get mad and say, ‘Enough is enough!’,” DeWine said Monday.
The Attorney General’s Heroin Unit, which will include investigators, lawyers, and drug abuse awareness specialists, will assist in combating crime, addiction, and overdose deaths like that of 20-year-old Marin Riggs, of Upper Arlington.
“Marin was 20 and headed to college to become an ultrasound technician. Her smile, which lit up the room, was extinguished by her heroin addiction, which lured her back after six months of sobriety. 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,” said Marin’s mother, Heidi.
Data collected from 47 Ohio coroner’s offices with complete heroin overdose data for 2010-12 show a 107-percent increase in heroin deaths among more than half of Ohio’s counties. Heroin overdose deaths increased in those 47 counties from 292 in 2010 to 606 last year.
Cuyahoga County led the way in 2012 with 161 deaths and appears to be hardest-hit by the increased heroin use. Authorities say there were as many as six possible overdose deaths during the weekend in Cleveland and its suburbs. The Cuyahoga County medical examiner’s office says expedited tests will be done to determine how the victims died.
Federal prosecutors say heroin overdose fatalities are up about 400 percent in recent years in parts of northeast Ohio.
DeWine’s office says there were 93 overdose deaths in Montgomery County in 2012, 73 in Franklin County and 54 in Hamilton County.