County looks at drug treatment program

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Drug addiction has become an increasingly serious problem in Van Wert County and all across the country. And the family of drugs most often abused is the opiate family – those drugs derived from chemicals found in the poppy plant.

Of the United States’ most abused drugs, most are opiate derivatives, including heroin, opium, morphine and prescription medications such as OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin. The addiction rate for heroin, in particular, is rapidly increasing all across Ohio – and the U.S. as well. Ironically, the rise in heroin addiction parallels the crackdown on prescription drug abuse. The problem has reached critical proportions the past couple of years as heroin flows in from Mexico and prices fall to levels comparable to the cost of marijuana.

State officials, alarmed at the increasing number of Ohioans who are addicted to heroin, seek a solution to the problem. This past Monday, Governor John Kasich, Attorney General Michael DeWine, the Ohio Supreme Court and the Ohio departments of Mental Health and Addiction Services and Rehabilitation and Correction, the Governor’s Cabinet Opiate Action Team and Office of Criminal Justice presented a Judicial Symposium on Opiate Addiction in Columbus.

Among the approximately 800 people attending the event were several local officials, including Common Pleas Judge Charles D. Steele, Probate-Juvenile Judge Kevin Taylor, Van Wert Municipal Court Judge Jill Leatherman, Adam Clark of the Van Wert County Sheriff’s Office, Westwood Behavioral Health Center Executive Director Mark Spieles, Tri County Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Executive Director Keith Turvy, Assistant County Prosecutor Eva Yarger, attorney Dillon Staas from the county Public Defender’s Office, Pastor Paul Hamrick from the local Celebrate Recovery program, County Chief Adult Probation Officer Bruce Showalter, and County Commissioner Stan Owens.

Like many other Ohio counties, Van Wert has seen its heroin problem explode over the past few years. Although the county’s overall incarceration rate ranks it in the bottom third of Ohio’s 88 counties (24.7 out of every 10,000 residents, according to statistics provided by the state), the county is in the top third of Ohio counties in the number of drug-related convictions (36.4 percent of felony convictions).

And that’s not even the whole story. Even those convicted of non-drug offenses are likely to also have a substance abuse problem stemming from either drugs or alcohol.

Unfortunately, as many state and local officials are finding out, fighting a heroin addiction is not easy. In the past, a significant difficulty in treating heroin addiction was that the primary drugs used to treat the addiction, methadone and suboxone, are also opiates. Those who beat their addiction to heroin then had to deal with a new addiction: the treatment drug. It also takes time – usually more than a year – to successfully beat a heroin addiction. With most of those sent to prison in for less than a year, more time and assistance is needed to help those who want to beat the habit.

Today, there’s new hope on the heroin treatment front that, surprisingly, comes from a drug used for several years to treat alcoholism. Vivitrol is a non-opiate drug that prevents addicts from getting a high from heroin use.

According to Judge Steele, local officials are also putting together a new program using Vivitrol, coupled with an intensive treatment program including medically assisted treatment through Westwood that targets the underlying addiction mentality. As part of that effort, Judge Steele said the local group is seeking funding for a treatment program coordinator that would be employed by Westwood to oversee the program.

“A group of us has been meeting for the past couple months to develop a new intensive treatment program for eligible offenders to include medically assisted treatment,” Judge Steele said. “We hope to begin the program in a month or two once we address the details.”

The judge said the expansion of the state Medicaid program, as part of the Affordable Care Act, should pay the cost of the program for most county probationers eligible for treatment.