Gov. Ted Strickland on Friday announced the creation of a state task force to battle prescription painkiller abuse, a problem local authorities say is one of the most consistent challenges they face.
"With drug work, it comes in waves," said Washington County sheriff's Detective Mark Warden. "You've got crack cocaine and cocaine, and we'll handle it for a while and then we'll hit heroin, but what has remained consistent - and it's there all the time - is prescription medication."
The amount of prescription pills officers with the local drug task force are purchasing from suspects is alarming.
"We're hearing from youngsters who are telling us how they're obtaining the medication and they're not going to doctor's offices, they're going to mom and dad's medicine cabinet," Warden said.
The sheriff's office has had one officer, Detective Kelly Travaglio, dedicated full-time to prescription medication cases for the last four or five months, her salary covered by grant funding, Sheriff Larry Mincks said. Aside from abuse, it can lead to other crimes, including burglary and theft.
"We've had people break into houses and go straight for the medicine cabinet," Mincks said, noting they bypass expensive items in favor of the prescription medicine.
Deaths from drug overdoses, many of them blamed on prescription painkillers, are now the leading cause of accidental death in Ohio, surpassing car crashes.
Strickland said the state faces a public health emergency. He said the new task force would identify ways to help police and health care officials stop the widespread abuse of pain medication.
The governor says Ohio also is making $250,000 in federal grants available for police to expand their efforts combating painkiller abuse.
From 2001 to April 2009, fatal drug overdoses have accounted for 44 deaths in Washington County, with victims ranging in age from 15 to 75.
Although more recent statistics were not available, it remains a concern. In late January, Jason I. Dunn, 24, of Marietta., was arrested for allegedly injecting a 20-year-old woman with heroin, which resulted in a non-fatal overdose.
Mincks said his office tries to track prescription drug overdoses. One way they do that is obtaining run sheets from local fire departments that detail whether a medicine called Narcan was used in an overdose. Narcan, Mincks said, is a drug used to revive someone who has overdosed.
The Associated Press contributed.
How to properly
dispose of
prescription drugs
Do not flush prescription drugs down the toilet or drain unless the label or accompanying patient information specifically instructs you to do so. For information on drugs that should be flushed, visit www.fda.gov .
Call your city or county government's household trash and recycling service and ask if a drug take-back program is available in your community. Also check with your local pharmacy.
If such a program is not available:
Take your prescription drugs out of their original containers.
Mix drugs with an undesirable substance, such as cat litter or used coffee grounds.
Put this mixture into a disposable container with a lid, such as an empty margarine tub, or into a sealable bag.
Conceal or remove any personal information, including prescription number, on the empty containers by covering it with black permanent marker or duct tape, or by scratching it off.
Place the sealed container with the mixture, and the empty drug containers, in the trash.
Source: Office of National Drug Policy.
