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Wisconsin DOJ to unveil massive anti-heroin campaign
Wisconsin DOJ to unveil massive anti-heroin campaign
MADISON (WITI) -- The Department of Justice has launched a statewide campaign to prevent heroin use -- and it's an in-your-face approach to stopping a growing epidemic.
"The Fly Effect" is a Wisconsin DOJ campaign aimed at stopping heroin abuse statewide.
The campaign is tackling the problem with TV, radio and internet ads, and distributing $125,000 to communities fighting a growing heroin problem.
The ads feature Ben Stibbe of Grafton -- serving 25 years in prison at the Green Bay Correctional Center for the deaths of four people who overdosed on drugs he supplied.
In the ads, Stibbe and other heroin dealers discuss their experience with the dangerous drug.
FOX6 Investigators spoke with Stibbe one-on-one inside the Green Bay Correctional Center back in May.
“I didn’t understand that, you know, you are helping people die,” Stibbe said.
Before Stibbe was heroin addict, he was just a kid from Grafton -- a middle class suburb with great schools and little crime. But he was raised in a troubled home where alcohol and drugs were frequently present. He started smoking pot at the age of 11. By age 16, he’d graduated to heroin.
“It was my identity,” Stibbe said.
By the time he was 19, Stibbe was snorting or injecting a gram of heroin everyday. That’s the equivalent of 17 ten-dollar bags, which calculates to more than $60,000 worth of heroin a year.
“It was like medicine to me. There was something wrong with me and this is what I have to do to survive,” Stibbe said.
And that’s how Stibbe became Ozaukee County’s one-man heroin pipeline.
In the ads, Stibbe says he had "no conscious and no morals," and speaks about his first overdose.
"My heart was just pounding so fast. I couldn't breathe and my whole body was in pain," Stibbe said.
Patricia Gutierrez works with people fighting addiction, and she says she has seen a huge increase in heroin abuse.
"It`s not a city thing. It`s widespread. It`s everywhere. Nowadays, they`re making it synthetically. It`s readily available. You can go to any party and find someone with heroin," Gutierrez said.
Opiate addictions make up more than 30 percent of the 1,000 clients Gutierrez has worked with since January.
In 2012, the state processed close to 650 heroin cases -- up 200 cases since 2010.
"People need to be aware of how addictive it is and how it can just destroy your life," Gutierrez said.
The DOJ wants its ads to make people think twice and change their minds about using heroin.
"If you could have one person stop and think `oh, I really didn`t know that,' it`s already worked," Gutierrez said.
Experts are blaming the increased abuse on the fact that heroin is now being made synthetically -- making it cheap and easy to find.
CLICK HERE to view the Wisconsin DOJ's anti-heroin campaign.