Heroin, cocaine and other illegal drugs remain widely available throughout Ohio, often at bargain prices, a new state report reveals.

If that isn't bad enough, the quality of the drugs is "is really good, too good. We've lost 12 friends in the past year (to overdoses)," said one respondent in the just-released Ohio Substance Abuse Monitoring Network Report. The semi-annual statewide report of drug availability trends is done by the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

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COLUMBUS - Louis Johnson, managing director of OMNI Medical Services, showed up Monday at a hearing about proposed rules governing physicians under Ohio's newly legal-medical marijuana program in hope the murky waters of "affirmative defense" might be cleared a bit.

But he never heard the words mentioned in testimony before the hearing officer, and the words won't be found in the rules written by the Ohio Medical Board.

"It's confusing a lot of municipalities and a lot of courtrooms..." Mr. Johnson said afterward. "They're applying the wait-for-the-state-is-ready rules to affirmative defense, and that's not how [the law] is written."

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A sheriff in an Ohio county with record numbers of overdose deaths in recent years is sticking to his long-standing refusal to allow deputies to carry an overdose-reversal drug.

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones says he remains opposed for safety reasons because people can become hostile and violent after being revived with Narcan. Deputies in neighboring counties in southwest Ohio do carry it.

"I don't do Narcan," Jones told The Cincinnati Enquirer. "They never carried it. Nor will they. That's my stance."

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Deb Sheamer and other friends of Charmaine Bassett protest her arrest and detention outside of the Lucas County Courthouse on June 21.

Friends of Charmaine Bassett protest her arrest and detention outside of the Lucas County Courthouse on June 21.

Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Michael Goulding on Friday found a Toledo woman charged with selling marijuana and illegal mushrooms for "spiritual purposes" competent to stand trial on felony drug charges.

Charmaine Rose Bassett, 56, of the 3400 block of Secor Road entered not guilty pleas to aggravated possession of drugs, aggravated trafficking in drugs, and trafficking in marijuana. She is the founder and "medicine woman" at Anyana-Kai, a member of the Oklevueha Native American Church.

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An council member in Middletown, Ohio, has asked the city's attorneys to look into whether the city has a legal obligation to provide ambulance service to repeat opiate overdose patients.

An council member in Middletown, Ohio, has asked the city's attorneys to look into whether the city has a legal obligation to provide ambulance service to repeat opiate overdose patients. (Brendan Smialowski/Getty-AFP)

Americans often complain that Washington debates seem to be far removed from the lives of real people.

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COLUMBUS - Nearly 200 prospective medical marijuana growers submitted applications to the state for cultivation licenses, but the Department of Commerce won't say yet where those applicants want to operate.

The department announced Wednesday that 185 applications were received by the state last month for two types of licenses: level II cultivators for grow operations with cultivation areas of 3,000 square feet or less, and level I cultivators, which can have up to 25,000 square feet. The state will issue 12 of each licenses.

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Anesthesiologist Dr. William James is the founder of the NorthWest Ohio Ketamine Clinic in Toledo, which offers the drug as an infusion to rapidly treat depression.

Anesthesiologist Dr. William James is the founder of the NorthWest Ohio Ketamine Clinic in Toledo, which offers the drug as an infusion to rapidly treat depression.

After three years of ever-present suicidal thoughts and two decades of unrelenting, treatment-resistant depression, Rosemarie Barciz was desperate.

The 61-year-old Maumee woman researched every new medication that came onto the market or excited researchers.

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Criminal charges filed against petition circulators accused of falsifying signatures on petitions for the marijuana-legalization ballot issue in 2015 show that people must be careful, Delaware County Prosecutor Carol O'Brien said.

"It serves as a cautionary note that people circulating petitions need to be very careful and follow the law when they are gathering signatures," O'Brien said. "People need to be careful to only sign their own names."

O'Brien commented Friday as four cases continued to move through Delaware County Common Pleas Court.

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Members of a West Toledo church that describes itself as "an alternative medicine and naturopathic healing center" demonstrated outside the Lucas County Courthouse today in support of the woman they call their head medicine woman.

Charmaine Rose Bassett, 56, is held in the Lucas County jail on felony charges of aggravated possession of drugs, aggravated trafficking in drugs, and trafficking in marijuana.

Bassett, who founded Anyana-Kai at 3344 Secor Rd., was indicted by a Lucas County grand jury after Toledo police raided the church and seized marijuana and illegal mushrooms. The indictment alleges she sold the marijuana and mushrooms to members who paid a fee to join the church.

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The man was still, mouth open, head back in a white Crown Victoria stalled in the middle of a neighborhood street.

A paramedic pushed a flexible tube in the man's vein to pump in lifesaving naloxone to block the effects of whatever opioid he had taken and, if all worked well, revive him. Routine work. A little girl stopped her bicycle, clutching a melting red ice pop as she watched.

"This is just normal for her," said David Geiger, director of Covington Emergency Medical Services, nodding toward the child.

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A string of northwest Ohio communities are considering or have passed resolutions in support of medical marijuana operations while other elected officials are rescinding past votes that prohibited such businesses.

Samples of marijuana are tested in an oven in Denver.

At least four village, township, and city councils voted Monday regarding medical marijuana cultivation in their communities, as the state licensing process for such grow sites moves forward.

The state began accepting applications for level II cultivators June 5, with a deadline of Thursday for 12 licenses for grow operations with an initial cultivation area of 3,000 square feet or less. Larger operations, called level I cultivators, can have up to 25,000 square feet, and the state also will issue 12 of those licenses. Applications for those larger operations begin June 19 and end June 30.

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Re "As Heroin Infests Farms, a Grieving Parent Fears for the Future" (front page, March 13):

The view of Roger D. Winemiller, who lost two children to drug overdoses, that the solution to the drug epidemic is tougher penalties, while understandable, is misguided.

As a former prosecutor, including time as a narcotics prosecutor, I can only conclude that the war on drugs is unwinnable. What good did tough narcotics laws do the Winemiller children? Would the results be better if sometimes draconian laws were made even more draconian?

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BLANCHESTER, Ohio - A life of farming taught Roger Winemiller plenty about harsh twists of fate: hailstorms and drought, ragweed infestations and jittery crop prices. He hadn't bargained on heroin.

Then, in March 2016, Mr. Winemiller's daughter, Heather Himes, 31, died of an opioid overdose at the family farmhouse, inside a first-floor bathroom overlooking fields of corn and soybeans. Mr. Winemiller was the one who unlocked the bathroom door and found her slumped over, a syringe by her side.

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The Town Center at Levis Commons, a retail center off State Rt. 25 in Perrysburg, said Wednesday it will train some of its security, cleaning, and management staff to administer a life-saving drug used to counteract opiate overdoses.

The center said it was important to acknowledge the heroin problem with training about a drug that can halt the affects of an opiate overdose.

Employees are to be trained by the end of next week by officials with the Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Program. Training will include how to identify a possible overdose and how to administer naloxone.

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LEXINGTON, Ky. -- One of the nation's largest pharmaceutical distributors allegedly failed to report suspicious orders in Kentucky and elsewhere, contributing to a spike in abuse of painkillers called opioids, federal authorities have charged.

McKesson Corp. agreed to pay a $150 million penalty for alleged violations of federal drug law, the U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday. The case was a civil, not criminal, matter.

The settlement resolves an investigation of a McKesson distribution center in Washington Court House, Ohio, by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency office in London and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky, based in Lexington, according to a news release.

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[photo] Tiffany Wigginton Carnal with her daughter Lyndi at Children's Hospital.(Photo: Provided)

Tiffany Wigginton Carnal is in the fight of her life to save her daughter.

Lyndi Carnal, 17, has Crohn's Disease, an inflammatory bowel disease that causes inflammation of the lining of the digestive tract, which can lead to abdominal pain, severe diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss and malnutrition. Lyndi was diagnosed when she was 14. Since that time, she and her mother have spent three Christmases, three New Year's Days and countless other days at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

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An addiction support group is partnering with a Florida treatment center to open a new opioid detox and treatment facility in Maumee - one of three potentially new detox centers in Lucas County.

Matt Bell, a former University of Toledo baseball player with the addiction support group Team Recovery, speaks about his fight against heroin addiction.

Team Recovery will work with Hollywood, Fla.,-based Recovery in the Light to open the center at Arrowhead Park. Using the business names Midwest Detox Center and Midwest Recovery Center, the new facility will have 22 beds for detox and 38 for treatment and recovery for those addicted to opiates, said Matt Bell, co-founder of Team Recovery. It will have medical directors, clinical directors, a 24-hour nursing staff, psychiatrists, and counselors. About 75 percent of staff will be in recovery themselves, as is Mr. Bell.

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COLUMBUS - Gov. John Kasich today signed another bill targeting Ohio's opiate and heroin epidemic.

In 2015, Ohio led the nation in opioid overdose deaths.

Senate Bill 319, sponsored by Sen. John Eklund (R., Chardon), expands access to the anti-overdose drug naloxone to entities such as homeless shelters, halfway houses, schools, and treatment centers that deal with populations at high risk of heroin overdose. It also offers civil immunity to law enforcement officers who carry and use naloxone.

"We have spent a billion dollars on this issue. A billion dollars...," Mr. Kasich said. "Thank God we expanded Medicaid, because that Medicaid money is helping to rehab people...There are going to be more tools to come, but we're not going to defeat this just from the top down."

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[photo] Trooper Mike Wilson of the Ohio Highway Patrol leads his canine partner, Pluto, past a truck on I-70 in Madison County. Last year, Ohio registered a record 3,050 overdose deaths, with many attributed to painkillers and heroin abuse.

Lt. Robert Sellers said state troopers' first job is to protect the public. Last year, troopers recovered 156 pounds of heroin and record amounts of painkillers and methamphetamines.

COLUMBUS - The Ohio Highway Patrol says the agency's new anti-drug emphasis is paying off with record seizures of heroin, opiates, and other illegal substances.

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Sgt. Kurt Beidelschies of the Ohio State Highway Patrol walks to his cruiser holding a truck driver's log books that will be examined for discrepancies after a drug-sniffing dog "alerted" to the presence of drugs on the truck along I-70 in Madison County.

Lt. Robert Sellers of the Ohio State Highway Patrol explains how his agency's new focus on stopping criminal activity along with its traditional role of traffic safety has led to record drug seizures in 2016, including a variety of drugs due for disposal.

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