Pubdate: Sun, 29 Jul 2012
Source: Tallmadge Express (OH)
Copyright: 2012 Record Publishing Co, LLC
Contact:  http://www.tallmadgeexpress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5011
Author: Alison Adams

COUNTY HIT WITH DRUG 'EPIDEMIC'

Summit County is experiencing an epidemic -- one that the majority of
the county is unaware of: a rise in meth and heroin abuse. It's a
well-kept secret to those who don't experience it first-hand.

"If you saw what I saw on some days, you would understand why it's an
epidemic," said Sarah Hulburt, a Summit County defense attorney. But
most people are "not aware of [the drug problem in Summit County] at
all," she said.

"I wasn't aware of it, it was completely shocking to me. The only
awareness of it they might have is if a friend or if they have a child
themselves that has been addicted to it."

Meth and heroin are quickly becoming the most common drugs in the
area, says Bill Holland, spokesperson for the Summit County Sheriff's
Department.

"There's times when we see a lot more of one drug than another," he
adds. "And right now meth and heroin are what we're seeing a lot of."

The large amount of drug users in Summit County has made it essential
for law enforcement to have an increased focus on "the war on drugs,"
Holland said.

"It's a pretty high priority for a couple reasons. Number one, heroin,
because it's become so prevalent in our area and a lot of people are
overdosing -- multiple people every week. That's just not something
this area's used to and we haven't seen it slow down," Holland says.
"Meth is also a priority because not only does it harm the users, but
it harms other people, too."

Portable meth labs a growing problem

Meth is becoming dangerous to a greater amount of people because of
new methods that make labs portable. The "one-pot method" makes it
possible to create meth in an object as small as a bottle of pop.

"You can throw it in your backpack and you can walk around and be
creating meth. You can have it in the trunk of your car and drive
around with a meth lab. When you're done, they just toss it out the
window, toss it into a Dumpster. You don't have all that waste at your
house," Holland says.

Holland says Summit County makes up one fourth of all the known meth
labs in the state, but that doesn't mean there are more meth labs in
the area than in others. The county is just more proactive and
aggressive with finding meth labs, he says.

"Meth has really come on the scene because number one, you can make it
yourself and you can get the components to make it at the store. You
don't have to go in a dark alley and meet with the drug dealer or have
a drug connection, you can get some of the components at Target, you
can find the recipe on the Internet," Holland says. "And number two,
it's very, very addictive."

Prescription pill abuse can lead to heroin use

Sgt. Michael Walsh, leader of the Summit County Sheriff's Office Drug
Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program, says Summit County has
a huge heroin problem coming back and that addiction rates have gone
up.

He says a lot of people who have someone on heroin in their family
don't say anything until it's too late.

"A lady at Summit Mall came up to me and she's like, 'I don't know
what to do, I just found out my son OD'd last night -- almost died on
heroin.' He's 17 years old, junior in high school. And his friend had
previously OD'd the week before," Walsh says. "Totally oblivious,
didn't know anything about the drugs at all."

Hulburt, who is also the Hudson High School Mock Trial Team coach,
says she deals with more heroin cases than she can count.

"Kids are stealing from their middle class parents, from good
communities, and their parents are literally locking everything in the
safe," Hulburt says. "Them saying, 'We can't have this person living
with us, yet this is my child. I don't want them on the streets. What
do we do? Here, it's in your hands.' I've had many of those."

She says prescription pills have become popular among high school
students, and the use of over-the-counter medications can lead to more
serious drug habits.

"Pain management treatment is basically, for me, a catch-all formula
for getting addicted. Physiologically they're addicted pretty much
instantly. In their mind, the idea of pain and the drugs sort of get
intertwined," Hulburt says. "Because as an addict, they often use the
term 'pain' to get the prescription, when really, they don't know the
difference between pain and being on the high because their responses
become different on the drug."

Hulburt says the problem is common among younger people because their
brains just respond to pleasure.

"It's easier for a younger person to get addicted because they have no
way to say yes or no. Their brain is going to tell them that if this
is good, let's do it," she says.

Break-ins on the rise to fund drug habits

Sgt. Walsh said some of the break-ins officers investigate involve the
theft of prescription drugs, not valuables like TVs and jewelry. Kids
are also stealing prescriptions from their family members.

"Kids will steal two or three from mom. Mom never pays attention to
what she has in her pill bottle," Walsh says. "Then they'll go to the
party on Friday night, have a 'Pharm Party' in which they come in and
drop their pills in a bowl. And as the night goes on, the bowl gets
passed, they take two of whatever and flush it down with a drink of
beer and see where the night takes them."

Crimes like theft are how most heroin addicts pick up felony charges.
Stores that carry high-ticket items are popular because they can get a
decent amount of money for things like TVs and ink cartridges.

But stealing from stores comes after a heroin addict has wiped their
family clean. Family members are often the first people an addict
steals from, and according to Hulburt, they will take anything and
everything.

"I even had a kid steal a snow shovel. Snow shovel. So the parents
will have safes because their children will literally steal the
silverware, anything they can get their hands on," Hulburt says.

Hulburt says she once dealt with a case in which the mother locked
everything in her car because she knew her son didn't have a set of
keys to it. She would sleep every night holding her keys to her chest.

Stopping the addiction before it begins

Sgt. Walsh believes education is the key to preventing children from
getting addicted, and one way to educate children is through the
D.A.R.E. program.

Walsh and four other officers travel to different school systems
throughout the area and cover topics like drug and alcohol abuse,
bullying and Internet safety, depending on what schools ask for.

Some children that Walsh interacts with aren't even aware that people
shouldn't be doing drugs. He said that he hopes the children he
teaches will go home to their parents and fill them in on what they've
learned to start positive conversations, but he says there are some
parents that just don't care.

"I had one kid come tell me, 'I never knew these drugs were bad.' Both
his parents were addicts. Ended up, [they] were both arrested for a
meth house. We arrested mom, dad and uncle. Everyone in his family
that was an adult was arrested," Walsh says. "So his whole life,
they've been involved in drugs. No one's ever told him it was wrong.
And I've run across that more than once."

The goal of the D.A.R.E. program is to educate children to make good
decisions, he says.

"Some people listen, some people don't. But at least they can't come
back and say, 'No one ever told me,'" Walsh says. "And that's our
goal: we educated you, we gave you a chance and we gave you the tools
to say no. And hopefully, we kept more kids alive."
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