Police Recruit Community Members to Stop Heroin Spread

DULUTH, Minn. - You may not hear about it in everyday life, but heroin is a deadly rapidly popular drug that's gripping the country including the Northland."The problem that's going on right now is really underrated and something needs to happen,” said St. Louis County public health nurse, Molly Edwards. “We all need to come together." It's a drug that knows no age, gender or race. Police say heroin is one of the most addictive drugs on the street. A few years ago, heroin cases were considered rare, but now health professionals are seeing children as young as 11 fully addicted. Educating people is one way to curb the use of drugs, according to authorities. Monday evening, about 50 Duluthians from all walks of life showed up to the second heroin town hall in hopes of stopping the spread. Police say it doesn't take much to get hooked on heroin and Edwards sees it firsthand."Many, many more pregnant women than anybody would expect are using drugs," Edwards said. It's her job to keep pregnant women off drugs and keep their children safe, but heroin has proven to be so addictive she says bad decisions are made every day."For example, today I have a client who I have a really great relationship with and she was using drugs,” Edwards explained. “I had to report her and with that she went to jail and she also got the baby taken away." Edwards says it's tragic stories of new born babies suffering from withdrawal that people don't hear about, but need to know."I think a lot of people are ashamed of the fact that it's going on and they don't really want to know about it," said Edwards. Lieutenant Jeff Kazel with Duluth Police Lake Superior Drug and Violent Crime Task Force has been heading drug busts for most of his career."I know that there's probably been people arrested within a block radius of this place for heroin, which is concerning," said Kazel, referring to the Washington Center in downtown Duluth. In all his years he said he has never seen a drug as addictive and fast spreading as heroin."People will go into their medicine cabinet in their bathrooms and find pain pills," said Lt. Kazel. "Once you get hooked onto pain pills it's an easy jump heroin. They're the same type of drug." Police believe open conversations about heroin and recruiting community members to help stop it is part of the mission of Duluth police."We want to make this the place where nobody wants to come to sell drugs because everybody is telling us about it and we're arresting them," said Kazel. Statistics show 80 percent of people addicted to heroin started on prescription drugs like pain killers. During the town hall conversation, Lt. Kazel said his officers are buying heroin on the street every day, and it's selling for about $250 a gram.