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State assists Trumbull Co. with heroin OD kits
By Ed Runyan
State Rep. Sean O’Brien, law enforcement and drug-treatment officials spoke by conference call Thursday with state leaders to attack the Trumbull County drug-abuse problem, which killed eight last week among more than 30 overdoses.
O’Brien, of Bazetta Township, D-63rd, said he initiated a conversation about the overdose problem Wednesday with Gov. John Kasich while meeting with him regarding a Vienna Township oil spill.
The governor “immediately asked his staff to come up with an answer,” O’Brien said Thursday during a news conference at the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office.
That led to the conference call and a commitment from Kasich that short-term help will be provided immediately in the form of around 500 naloxone kits being provided to local law enforcement and health officials.
Local officials also will meet over the next 10 days to establish strategies to address the problem more aggressively in the short term and long term, said Capt. Jeff Orr, commander of the Trumbull Ashtabula Group Law Enforcement Task Force.
Orr told reporters last Friday that a spike in overdose deaths had hit Trumbull County that week. He estimated that most were heroin overdoses and that the prescription drug fentanyl probably had been added to it, creating a combination much more potent that straight heroin.
Orr said Thursday the overdose problem is everywhere, but the “severity of it impacted us unlike we’ve seen before, so we had to take some swift action.”
Orr, whose organization focuses mostly on drug crimes, asked his colleagues in law enforcement and emergency medical services to investigate overdoses as a crime to gain more insight into the origin of the drugs so the dealers could be better identified.
Orr said a meeting among law enforcement will take place next week. A follow-up meeting with the governor’s office will occur several days after that.
The Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services will provide the naloxone kits as a short-term effort, said Lauren Thorp, director of the Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board’s recovery and youth programs.
Naloxone, used routinely by ambulance and hospital personnel, reverses the effects of a drug overdose. But only the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office currently has the drug available to its officers.
The Trumbull County Health Department has given out about 25 naloxone kits this year through a program that gives kits to family members and friends of addicts, and two of the kits have been used to save people, Thorp said.
Having additional kits available will allow other police departments, including Warren’s, to obtain kits at no cost, officials said.
The more potent and lethal fentanyl-laced heroin has been an issue in the Mahoning Valley for several years, Boardman Police Chief Jack Nichols said.
His department soon will get naloxone kits. Within the next several weeks, Nichols plans to purchase one kit for every uniformed officer in the patrol division, totaling about 40 kits.
The department, which will get the discount the Ohio Attorney General’s Office is offering, likely will pay for the kits using Law Enforcement Trust Fund dollars.
“If it benefits one time, it’s well worth the cost,” Nichols said.
Aside from the overdose antidote, he said his department’s primary role in combating the opiate-addiction crisis is to make arrests.
“We have a very active narcotics-enforcement unit. They’re out there every day making buys and doing search warrants,” he said. “We do the best we can do on the law-enforcement end. ... Our job is to make arrests and bring people into the system.”
He recognizes, however, that it will take more than that to end the epidemic.
“I’ve always said we’re not going to arrest our way out of this problem,” he said earlier.
A Boardman resident recently died from a drug overdose. Donald “Donny” Logiudice, 28, died April 2. His obituary says he “became a victim of laced heroin that caused his untimely passing.” There will be a celebration of life fundraiser in honor of Logiudice from noon to 11 p.m. Sunday at Martini Brothers in Youngstown.
The Mahoning County Coroner’s Office did not return a message seeking comment.
Youngstown Police Chief Robin Lees said the city is not experiencing the same problem with heroin users as Trumbull County, primarily because the sources and supplies of heroin in Youngstown are different from those in Trumbull County.
“To my knowledge, we are not seeing that in the Youngstown area just yet,” Lees said.
Austintown Township has had “no deaths involving this. I’m almost positive none in Austintown,” said police Capt. Bryan Kloss. He also said there weren’t any overdoses.
Each patrol car features naloxone (also known as Narcan) — that was done about a month ago — and none has been swapped out with kits stored at the police department. Kloss said each has a shelf life of two years.
Austintown Detective Lt. Jeff Solic, head of the Mahoning Valley Law Enforcement Task Force, echoed: “We have not encountered any, not that I’m aware of yet.”
Solic said the task force usually sends heroin to be tested through the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. “Right now, there’s nothing that we’ve submitted over the past few weeks that’s coming back with anything other than heroin,” he said.
Campbell Police Chief Drew Rauzan said his department has not come across any laced heroin in the city.
“All heroin is a scourge on society, and we are always vigilantly on patrol for anyone engaging in narcotics trafficking or usage,” he said. “The simple solution is to stay away from anything you even think could be heroin and to contact a police officer.”
Contributors: Staff writers Jordyn Grzelewski, Joe Gorman, Brandon Klein and Robert Connelly