Local Report: The ‘Quick Fix’ Is Turning Northern Kentucky Into a Heroin Epidemic

by Brandon Neilan

Ad campaigns have marginalized the area in and around Northern Kentucky with anti-heroin campaigns designed to battle the growing epidemic that is making the area a centralized dealing haven. Local, state, and federal police units have ramped up their hiring, training, and general coverage of the area in hopes to quell this deadly drug.

Task force units have been made, designed to tackle this problem, one user, one dealer at a time.

The problem is, you no longer have to inject this drug — people no longer have to stare a needle in the face to get that ever death defying experience. They can smoke it, snort it, and even administer to themselves via an oral method.

At $9 a pop, people find a fix on heroin easier to afford than pain medicine.

People are tying themselves off at the Target parking lot off the I-471, injecting themselves — with their kids in the car.

I was recently talking to a lady working at a salon, her husband is a recently retired Newport, KY area police officer:

My husband just retired, and he said it’s getting worse. If you see more than one police officer on the I-471 with someone pulled over, it’s a heroin bust. Plain and simple. People are turning blue and passing out behind the wheel.

This is increasingly scary. It’s an epidemic that I myself am seeing police officers and sheriffs from at least 4 jurisdictions in my area deal with.

You check your mail, anti-heroin direct mail. You walk into Kroger, T.V. campaigns against the drug are being ran. You drive down the freeway, billboard ads tell you to call a number to report a dealer in your area.

The epidemic is real. You no longer are looking for habitual drug users, AKA street users. These are sometimes everyday people, people that have good jobs, that have loving families — but that turn to the drug for a quick pain relieving high.

With only 8% of Kentucky’s population wrapped up in Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties — but yet, having more heroin cases than all of Kentucky combined — is a staggering statistic.

The NKY Epidemic Starts:

There are many many rumors as to how Northern Kentucky got mixed up in the Heroin war.

But this is how it really started.

Back in 2010 OxyContin was reformulated, and Opana in 2011.

Then in 2012 Kentucky Legislation passed the state’s ‘pill mill’ law — which cracked down on unnecessary prescriptions of pain medications. Some of those people that were now being denied pain medicine were in turn, turning to heroin to help quell and numb their discomfort/pain.

These two drugs simultaneously led to the influx of heroin use in Northern Kentucky, with the wide breadth of stockpile located just across the Ohio River in Cincinnati, the dealers supply chain found new end-users. OxyContin was now at a price of $60–$100 per 80 mg pill compared to the single fix of Heroin at $9.

The top 5 counties for heroin overdose deaths (2014):

1. Jefferson County 105
2. Fayette County 35
3. Kenton County 34
4. Boone County 22
5. Campbell County 16

The last 3 comprise the counties of Kenton, Boone, and Campbell — all part of Northern Kentucky — a total of 72 heroin related deaths.

Cincinnati.com reported back in 2013, on 2011 statistics:

Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties together accounted for nearly 60 percent of Kentucky’s heroin prosecutions in 2011, even though the three counties have just 8.4 percent of the state’s population.

In 2014, there were 723 Kentucky deaths, 27% of those were related to heroin.

Since 2010, “Black Tar” has been produced in Mexico, then smuggled into Cincinnati, Louisville, Northern Kentucky area, etc…

What’s Being Done:

More paramedics and first responders are carrying naloxone/narcon — a pharmaceutical drug that is literally used to revive heroin addicts and people that have overdosed.

Transition and addiction treatment centers have been staffed, but the resources seem to be inadequately able to handle the growing demand vs health-care workers.

Multi-task forces comprised of local, state, and federal law enforcement have made specially designed units to try to kick the door in at the source, stricter sentences are being put into place for traffickers.

A timeline of heroin, from BC to now — (below):

More reading:

http://odcp.ky.gov/Reports/2014%20annual%20report%20FINAL.pdf

New 2015 Legislative Initiatives designed to tackle heroin use and overdoses — (below):

Lives are being affected, uncompromisingly.