WAUKESHA (WITI) -- Waukesha District Attorney and Attorney General candidate Brad Schimel has joined with state Representative John Nygren and local law enforcement to unveil "S.T.O.P. Heroin," a comprehensive plan to address the state’s growing heroin and other opiate epidemic.
Heroin, an illegal and highly addictive drug, has contributed to a growing number of deaths in Wisconsin.
Over approximately a decade, Wisconsin accidental opiate overdose deaths have nearly quadrupled.
Last year, deaths from heroin rose 50% to 199, representing a dramatic increase from the average of 29 deaths each year between 2000 and 2007.
Drug overdose is now the leading cause of accidental death, surpassing all motor vehicle crash deaths.
“Heroin is clearly the top public safety issue facing our state and families. While others talk about fighting the scourge of heroin, Waukesha County is leading the state in prosecuting Len Bias-type homicide cases and holding those who deliver the drugs that cause overdose deaths accountable,” Schimel said. “By partnering with law enforcement in my county, we are now the number two source of heroin submissions to the State Crime Lab. The successes experienced in Waukesha County demonstrate what is possible when law enforcement and prosecutors have the best training available and necessary resources to work together to combat this growing epidemic. As the next attorney general, I’ll use my experience and success to lead a new attack on heroin abuse and trafficking.”
Schimel’s proposed a plan, S.T.O.P. (Support Teaching Opiates Prevention) Heroin, includes creating new partnerships with local law enforcement, parents, teachers, and medical professionals to raise awareness about these deadly drugs.
In addition, Schimel’s plan contains a training component for law enforcement and the establishment of drug treatment courts statewide.
The Wisconsin Crime Laboratory, which is responsible for scientific analysis of heroin samples submitted by law enforcement, has seen a dramatic increase from nearly all of Wisconsin’s 72 counties in recent years.
Since 1995, the number of teens between the ages of 12 and 17 who have tried heroin has increased by more than 300%.
In 2013, there was an estimated 1.25 million chronic users of heroin nationwide and only 20-25% of users were in treatment.
The U.S. experiences a heroin epidemic about every 40 years, but our current epidemic is different. It is far more pervasive and far more deadly.
“There are two primary reasons that the current epidemic is so devastating. First, there are different introductory drugs that are creating opiate addicts. Second, today’s heroin is far more powerful, and far more deadly than what we have seen in the past," Schimel said.
“The new introductory drugs are prescription opiates. Prescription opiate painkillers, such as Oxycontin, Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Vicodin, Percocet and others, are synthetic heroin made in laboratories. These medications have legitimate medical uses, but their proliferation in our society makes them too easily accessible to young people who believe that, since they are prescribed by medical professionals, they must not be addictive or dangerous. The truth is, though, that many become addicted very quickly and many of the accidental overdose deaths involve prescription medications without heroin. The most frightening aspect to this is that many are starting to abuse prescription opiates in their early teens, and by the time they graduate high school, will have already started using heroin. Make no mistake: almost no one starts with heroin. They first become addicted to prescription opiate medications, but when the prescriptions inevitably become scarce or too expensive, heroin is cheaper and abundantly available," Schimel said.
A troubling problem is that the heroin being sold on the streets today is many times more powerful than the heroin law enforcement was dealing with as recently as the 1990s.
Heroin once came to the U.S. exclusively from Southeast and Southwest Asia.
It was difficult to get it here, so it had to be “cut”, or diluted, extensively to make it profitable.
In the mid 1980s, the average purity of heroin in the U.S. was between 3% and 8%.
In the course of the past decade, the source of heroin has shifted so that almost all heroin in the United States comes from Mexican and South American drug cartels.
It is easier to get the deadly drug into our communities, so it is possible to make huge profits without having to dilute the drug so much.
Now, heroin sold to users ranges from 20% to nearly 80% in purity.
This more powerful drug causes addiction much more quickly, which creates the steady customer base the cartel business model envisions.
Of course, the higher purity and lack of predictability of the purity levels have also resulted in many more overdose deaths, which to the drug cartels is a “cost of doing business.”
“Until we raise awareness in communities across Wisconsin about the deadly affects of heroin and opiates the problem will only continue to worsen,” Schimel said.
Schimel’s detailed plan can be found at www.BradSchimel.com/heroin/ and below is a summary of his proposal:
SUPPORT:
TEACHING:
OPIATES:
PREVENTION: