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Getting Help: Funding The Fight Against Heroin
By: Marisa Oberle
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**Editor’s note: The students of WOUB News’ Investigative Unit are looking into the heroin epidemic of Southeast Ohio. This article is the second in a series of stories chronicling the situation and what steps are being taken to combat it. Be sure to follow @WOUBNews on Twitter and “Like” our Facebook page to stay up-to-date with our stories.
Athens County law enforcement officials are trying to combat the heroin epidemic, but are hindered by a lack of state funding and what they see as a failure to recognize underlying issues.
“It’s a huge problem,” Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn explained. “It’s where we’ve neglected inner cities and we’ve neglected poverty. This isn’t a racial issue. It’s a poor issue; and so Appalachia is poor.”
From 2000 to 2012, the state of Ohio saw a 366% increase in drug overdose deaths, according to the 2014 report from the Governor’s Cabinet Opiate Action Team. The report states the number of heroin-related deaths rose; especially from 2011 to 2012.
The average heroin user is described as 25-34 years old, living in urban and suburban parts of northeast and southern Ohio.
“You gotta realize and understand they’re really sick, they’re addicted,” Athens County Sheriff Rodney Smith said. “…and in our position, we want to get them better.”
However, in order to reduce the problem, law enforcement need money to fight it.
“It’s easy for people to say lock them all up and throw away the key, but we’re dealing with people and we only get one shot at this world,” Blackburn explained.
Blackburn has seen the heroin crisis first hand. According to Blackburn, his team linked heroin’s origins in Athens County back to 2004.
However, the state did little to help affected areas until it reached Upper Arlington, an affluent, upper middle class suburb outside of Columbus, Blackburn said.
“It got into Upper Arlington in 2010, 2011,” Blackburn said. “And that’s when the state became involved. When it was in downtown Cleveland and the west side of Columbus and inner city Dayton and inner city Cincinnati, it was their problem. When it got to Upper Arlington High School it became the state’s problem.”
The median household income was $100,736 between 2010 and 2014 according to U.S. Census Bureau numbers. In comparison, in 2014, the average Athens county household brought in $33,773.
In fiscal year 2017, the state budgeted $3.7 million towards justice and public protection.
This account funds state agencies like the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, Department of Public Safety, Attorney General, Department of Youth Services, Judiciary/ Supreme Court, Public Defender Commission and Adjutant General’s Department.
The prosecutor and sheriff’s offices receive most of their money from the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction through grants.
For example, in October 2015, the Prosecutor’s Office received an 18 month, $149,614 Probation Improvement and Incentive Grant (PIIG) to fund its Vivitrol program according to its fiscal year 2016 budget.
The grant provides Athens courts with funding to assist them in meeting sentencing reform goals. The grant lasts through July 2017.
However, funds for equipment, money used in drug investigations (known as “buy money”), and other things, don’t always come from the DRC account. Smith said those funds come from various official sources throughout the state and county.
While the sheriff agrees the office could use more help, he understands the state can only give so much.
“Of course we can always use more but I’m very happy with the cooperation we’ve gotten from the state and the attorney general’s office,” Smith said. “I mean, I get it. Everyone needs money. But we’re certainly going to ask and try and articulate what we need and why we need it.”
WOUB’s Investigative Unit reached out to Rob Portman, Lou Gentile, Debbie Phillips, the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the Ohio Attorney General’s Heroin Unit for comment on the concerns. Calls have not been returned.
Both Smith and Blackburn agree 90 percent of all crimes in Athens county lead back to drugs. It’s something that Athens County Common Pleas Judge Patrick Lang said holds true to his daily work.
“Roughly 90 percent of my docket is a criminal docket,” Lang said. “Of that, definitely a majority of those I would say are cases involving drugs. And of the cases that involve drugs, heroin is certainly the biggest proportion of those right now.”
Blackburn added there’s a new mentality on how to treat addiction amongst state officials.
“The Public Defender’s office and the Department of Corrections wants to reduce the prison population. Prosecutors want to make the community better. Those three things don’t always get along,” Blackburn said.
Ohio prisons are overcrowded. Prison populations rose 15.1 percent from fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2016, according to the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee, a legislative committee that oversees Ohio’s prisons and youth services facilities. In that same period, the rate of overcrowding increased from 114.8 percent in fiscal year 2005 to 132.1 percent in fiscal year 2016.
Blackburn went on to say the state is making it more difficult to put people in jail. Instead, they’re being diverted to rehabilitation programs. However, that’s not always the best option according to Blackburn.
“Our goal is to help people, our goal is to do justice and our goal is to make the community better,” Blackburn said. “So you take those three competing interests, ‘cause helping people is giving them treatment. Sometimes when you help someone and they don’t take advantage of it, it harms the community, and so it’s a difficult thing.”
It’s about finding what works best, the officials said.
“We try and find all the treatment alternatives that can be found and get folks the help they need if they’re caught in this cycle of addiction and try and get them treatment before it becomes a more serious situation or becomes a life threatening situation for them or for their families,” Lang added.
For law enforcement, it’s just as much of a community problem as it is a criminal problem.
“It’s a community problem because you know it’s your misery that you’re afraid to sit on your porch or these guys are wrecking your neighborhood and we all need to try to work together,” Smith said.
And in order for the state to successfully tackle the epidemic, input from all communities throughout the state need to be heard.
“This is a very diverse state,” Blackburn said. “And the needs of Lucas County are different from the needs of Athens County. But we all need to work together just to make this a better place to be.”
The first story in the series, “Addiction: How Choices Turn to Disease,” can be read here.