U.S. Sen. Todd Young Hears About The Local Drug Epidemic
February 24, 2023 at 2:14 a.m.
U.S. Sen. Todd Young Hears About The Local Drug Epidemic
By David [email protected]
The Republican lawmaker stopped in Warsaw for a roundtable discussion at City Hall with law enforcement from the Warsaw Police Department and Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department, Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory EMS Chief Chris Fancil, Kosciusko County Commissioner Cary Groninger, Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer and Councilman Jeff Grose. Young has been traveling around the state on his jobs, innovation and security tour and he wanted to hear what the concerns were from the Warsaw and county law enforcement.
“For starters, is there anything you feel is unique to this area, the area that you serve in, that you think I should be aware of, whether it’s a positive thing or a negative thing?” Young asked.
WPD Chief Scott Whitaker said there was a meeting Wednesday with the county prosecutor and the topic was mental health, the opioid crisis and fentanyl. He said the city’s CARES (Community Assistance, Resources and Emergency Services) program is up and running to try to help offset some of the calls for service and try to provide resources for people who may need mental health or drug addiction services.
“We’re seeing these funds come in, but we’re not seeing any funds directed toward officer safety. We’re dealing with something we have no control over,” Whitaker said, adding that there’s a concern for officers’ safety when they’re dealing with powdery substances like fentanyl and the dangers of that to officers. He said there’s tools out there, but there’s no funding for it. “Everything seems to be toward rehabilitation, but not necessarily for the enforcement and safety, not just the enforcement but for the safety of the officers.”
Young said he’s had similar roundtables before over the years, but officers’ safety is not something he was sure they hit on before. He asked them to help him understand the danger to an officer and not just from people doing dangerous things toward them. He asked if the danger was from the substance itself.
“Correct,” Whitaker said, citing accidental inhaling as an example.
Mayor Joe Thallemer said Whitaker called him this past week about a situation where the WPD had some real concerns. Whitaker said an officer wasn’t sure but he thought he might have been exposed.
“Normally, it’s in a powder form, but it also can be pill form. We’re seeing a lot of pill form here, but this was actually in a capsule and this was being tested,” Chief Deputy Bryan Sherwin said, and that’s where the exposure was thought to have occurred.
Thallemer said there’s some new, expensive technology that uses infrared or light waves to determine what type of substance something is through a plastic bag.
“We’ve been fighting the opioid epidemic for such a long time, and now these (national opioid settlement) funds come back to give us a little reprieve, and it would seem there would be some way to really look at officers’ safety besides just the rehab,” Thallemer said.
WPD Capt. Paul Heaton further explained to Young that the technology allows an officer to field test a substance in a bag without exposing themselves. “So you can literally test it without having to swipe the powder to verify that’s what you’re charging somebody with or not charging somebody with,” he said.
TruNarc Handheld Narcotics Analyzer is a name of one of the devices. Thallemer said the cost is about $40,000 a pop.
“We’re going to try to work together to try to get them throughout the county. Obviously, we can’t put one in every car, but with that technology, it would certainly help,” Thallemer said.
Young said he’s never heard of the device before and he’s never thought critically about officers’ exposure. “We will get you more information about how the money may or may not be made more flexible and why, or if there’s other funding opportunities to still get you to the same place you’d like to end up, and we can explore those together,” he said.
Thallemer said with government programs, there seems to be a lot of money out there, but there’s also a lot of restrictions on those funds. “A lot of money is just sitting around and maybe this is a little example of that,” he said.
As much money as is coming from the opioid settlement, Young said it’s probably still a drop in the ocean as compared to what’s needed to treat the individuals who get hooked on the drugs.
He said there’s other law enforcement grants out there and maybe those could cover some of the expenses for officer safety.
Thallemer also asked about the national opioid settlement money coming into the community and said everyone around the state was trying to figure out how to use it. Some of it is restricted, some of it is not and payments may be made for about the next 15 years, he said. There may be more settlements coming down the pipe, too, he said, and he asked Young what his experience has been and if he knows how other communities are using that money.
“You know, I’m just starting to hear about this issue, so I can be a going-forward source of information and see if my team and I can shed some light on that. And if you need more flexibility, what you can use it for or if there’s friction points in getting access to some of the money, it’s something we can help” with, Young said.
Thallemer said the state has put out some pretty good guidelines, but folks are trying to understand it. Young said he and his team will look into it and get some better answers for him.
Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory EMS Chief Chris Fancil has worked the last three years on setting the CARES program up.
“What we’ve kind of figured out is, all we’re trying to do is be that resource conduit because these people need to get to some place for treatment,” he explained to Young. “But police officers, these guys do a great job, but when a police officer shows up, some folks immediately think they’re in trouble. And when we show up, everybody loves a firefighter, right? So we show up, the dynamic changes. We show up and we’re able to get that anxiety level to go down and then we have the contacts and resources to try to get people the treatment that they need.”
Fancil said they’re hoping to use the opioid settlement money in a really good way in the community.
On overdoses, just in the city, two years ago the fire department gave Narcan 21 times to patients who were either not breathing or not breathing well enough to sustain life. That went up to 30 and then last year was over 40 times, he said.
“Just our department. I don’t know how often the sheriff’s office is giving it,” Fancil said, or the other emergency service departments in the county. “Just our department is doing it 40 times a year to save someone’s life, hopefully. Not all of those were successful. Certainly, we lost some people to overdoses in that 40,” he said. “I think that number keeps getting bigger and worse, and this year, so far anyway, we’ve had at least two drug overdose deaths just here in the city. Young people who had a full life ahead of them and they got down a bad path and couldn’t get out.”
Young asked if the number of overdoses have been going up.
“Yes,” Sherwin said. “Unfortunately, the last two years they have really gone up. We had one this last week.”
One recent Saturday morning, he said there were four different overdoses at the same time in different locations. Sherwin said one has to wonder if that was because of a bad batch of drugs. “Because now some people are lacing fentanyl in with marijuana,” he said.
In one incident, Fancil said there was one adult unresponsive, one adult barely responsive and kids running around.
“I told someone earlier today, I’ve told our guys, if we have a child in cardiac arrest, which we hope to never have, when we do, we have to consider giving that child Narcan. We don’t know what they’ve been exposed to within that residence,” Fancil said.
Sherwin said the issue is not going anywhere fast.
The Republican lawmaker stopped in Warsaw for a roundtable discussion at City Hall with law enforcement from the Warsaw Police Department and Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department, Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory EMS Chief Chris Fancil, Kosciusko County Commissioner Cary Groninger, Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer and Councilman Jeff Grose. Young has been traveling around the state on his jobs, innovation and security tour and he wanted to hear what the concerns were from the Warsaw and county law enforcement.
“For starters, is there anything you feel is unique to this area, the area that you serve in, that you think I should be aware of, whether it’s a positive thing or a negative thing?” Young asked.
WPD Chief Scott Whitaker said there was a meeting Wednesday with the county prosecutor and the topic was mental health, the opioid crisis and fentanyl. He said the city’s CARES (Community Assistance, Resources and Emergency Services) program is up and running to try to help offset some of the calls for service and try to provide resources for people who may need mental health or drug addiction services.
“We’re seeing these funds come in, but we’re not seeing any funds directed toward officer safety. We’re dealing with something we have no control over,” Whitaker said, adding that there’s a concern for officers’ safety when they’re dealing with powdery substances like fentanyl and the dangers of that to officers. He said there’s tools out there, but there’s no funding for it. “Everything seems to be toward rehabilitation, but not necessarily for the enforcement and safety, not just the enforcement but for the safety of the officers.”
Young said he’s had similar roundtables before over the years, but officers’ safety is not something he was sure they hit on before. He asked them to help him understand the danger to an officer and not just from people doing dangerous things toward them. He asked if the danger was from the substance itself.
“Correct,” Whitaker said, citing accidental inhaling as an example.
Mayor Joe Thallemer said Whitaker called him this past week about a situation where the WPD had some real concerns. Whitaker said an officer wasn’t sure but he thought he might have been exposed.
“Normally, it’s in a powder form, but it also can be pill form. We’re seeing a lot of pill form here, but this was actually in a capsule and this was being tested,” Chief Deputy Bryan Sherwin said, and that’s where the exposure was thought to have occurred.
Thallemer said there’s some new, expensive technology that uses infrared or light waves to determine what type of substance something is through a plastic bag.
“We’ve been fighting the opioid epidemic for such a long time, and now these (national opioid settlement) funds come back to give us a little reprieve, and it would seem there would be some way to really look at officers’ safety besides just the rehab,” Thallemer said.
WPD Capt. Paul Heaton further explained to Young that the technology allows an officer to field test a substance in a bag without exposing themselves. “So you can literally test it without having to swipe the powder to verify that’s what you’re charging somebody with or not charging somebody with,” he said.
TruNarc Handheld Narcotics Analyzer is a name of one of the devices. Thallemer said the cost is about $40,000 a pop.
“We’re going to try to work together to try to get them throughout the county. Obviously, we can’t put one in every car, but with that technology, it would certainly help,” Thallemer said.
Young said he’s never heard of the device before and he’s never thought critically about officers’ exposure. “We will get you more information about how the money may or may not be made more flexible and why, or if there’s other funding opportunities to still get you to the same place you’d like to end up, and we can explore those together,” he said.
Thallemer said with government programs, there seems to be a lot of money out there, but there’s also a lot of restrictions on those funds. “A lot of money is just sitting around and maybe this is a little example of that,” he said.
As much money as is coming from the opioid settlement, Young said it’s probably still a drop in the ocean as compared to what’s needed to treat the individuals who get hooked on the drugs.
He said there’s other law enforcement grants out there and maybe those could cover some of the expenses for officer safety.
Thallemer also asked about the national opioid settlement money coming into the community and said everyone around the state was trying to figure out how to use it. Some of it is restricted, some of it is not and payments may be made for about the next 15 years, he said. There may be more settlements coming down the pipe, too, he said, and he asked Young what his experience has been and if he knows how other communities are using that money.
“You know, I’m just starting to hear about this issue, so I can be a going-forward source of information and see if my team and I can shed some light on that. And if you need more flexibility, what you can use it for or if there’s friction points in getting access to some of the money, it’s something we can help” with, Young said.
Thallemer said the state has put out some pretty good guidelines, but folks are trying to understand it. Young said he and his team will look into it and get some better answers for him.
Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory EMS Chief Chris Fancil has worked the last three years on setting the CARES program up.
“What we’ve kind of figured out is, all we’re trying to do is be that resource conduit because these people need to get to some place for treatment,” he explained to Young. “But police officers, these guys do a great job, but when a police officer shows up, some folks immediately think they’re in trouble. And when we show up, everybody loves a firefighter, right? So we show up, the dynamic changes. We show up and we’re able to get that anxiety level to go down and then we have the contacts and resources to try to get people the treatment that they need.”
Fancil said they’re hoping to use the opioid settlement money in a really good way in the community.
On overdoses, just in the city, two years ago the fire department gave Narcan 21 times to patients who were either not breathing or not breathing well enough to sustain life. That went up to 30 and then last year was over 40 times, he said.
“Just our department. I don’t know how often the sheriff’s office is giving it,” Fancil said, or the other emergency service departments in the county. “Just our department is doing it 40 times a year to save someone’s life, hopefully. Not all of those were successful. Certainly, we lost some people to overdoses in that 40,” he said. “I think that number keeps getting bigger and worse, and this year, so far anyway, we’ve had at least two drug overdose deaths just here in the city. Young people who had a full life ahead of them and they got down a bad path and couldn’t get out.”
Young asked if the number of overdoses have been going up.
“Yes,” Sherwin said. “Unfortunately, the last two years they have really gone up. We had one this last week.”
One recent Saturday morning, he said there were four different overdoses at the same time in different locations. Sherwin said one has to wonder if that was because of a bad batch of drugs. “Because now some people are lacing fentanyl in with marijuana,” he said.
In one incident, Fancil said there was one adult unresponsive, one adult barely responsive and kids running around.
“I told someone earlier today, I’ve told our guys, if we have a child in cardiac arrest, which we hope to never have, when we do, we have to consider giving that child Narcan. We don’t know what they’ve been exposed to within that residence,” Fancil said.
Sherwin said the issue is not going anywhere fast.
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