After a month’s worth of research from his office, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced Monday he will oversee the creation of a new unit within his office to fight heroin use statewide.
According to data submitted to DeWine from 47 county coroners, whose counties comprise 75 percent of the state’s population, 606 Ohioans died from heroin overdoses last year.
That number is more than double the total from 2010, according to historical data from DeWine’s office.
“I intend to use the office of attorney general as a bully pulpit to take this message into community after community,” DeWine said.
Dr. Harold Thompson, the Athens County coroner, did not submit overdose totals from Athens County to DeWine’s office, and he could not be reached for comment by press time.
The new heroin unit, which will cost the office an estimated $1 million each year, includes a team of investigators, lawyers and drug agents, DeWine said, to coordinate local efforts to curb heroin addiction.
DeWine might be on board in fighting what he called Ohio’s “heroin epidemic,” but Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly, who has made eliminating drug use in his jurisdiction a cornerstone of his tenure, said the attorney general is going about the fight in all the wrong ways.
Kelly, who’s been an outspoken critic of DeWine, said he’d like to see the funding go directly to Ohio local governments.
“Nothing will come out of this,” Kelly said. “(DeWine) doesn’t have any direct influence on any program that we do. …We’re doing a very good job of seizing drugs coming into the county.”
To stimulate local dialogue, DeWine said he plans on hosting forums in cities throughout the state to discuss local drug use and helping local law enforcement agencies secure grants.
sh335311@ohiou.edu
@SamuelHHoward
