If you think Geauga County is a “safe zone,” distant from drug abuse and opioid-related social and criminal activities, consider the following report from the Geauga County Sheriff’s Office Feb. 25 blotter:
12:27 a.m. – 25 year-old-male unconscious. CPR is in progress. He’s outside in the driveway. Caller’s mother is doing CPR. Caller does not know how long the male has been unconscious, she found him that way.
12:32 a.m. – Caller states the male has a pulse now, but still isn’t breathing.
12:34 a.m. – Patient is now breathing and has been placed in the recovery position. Female who was performing CPR and caring for the patient is a nurse. Male was located in driveway by family after stepping out. Narcan was administered by a family member.
2:48 a.m. – Patient transported to UH by FD, no evidence was located on the scene or on subject’s person. He stated he snorted an unknown substance.
Location: rural Thompson Township.
He could be your cousin, neighbor or co-worker — just a typical, Geauga County resident who chose to snort a powder of unknown origin, his addiction likely drawing him to put his life on the line.
Sheriff’s deputies file the reports of overdoses resulting in a trip to the hospital or morgue at least twice a month.
Geauga County Sheriff Scott Hildenbrand has seen more than his share of emergency calls — both in his law enforcement uniform and as chief of Hambden Township Fire Department — and knows addiction crosses all demographic lines.
“I watched (EMTs) give a guy nine doses of Narcan before they brought him around. He was 62,” Hildebrand said, referring to the nasal spray that counteracts an opioid overdose.
He added not all users are that lucky.
“Last year, we had 24 overdose deaths,” he said.
The use of opiates skyrocketed since Scott Niehus became chief of the Chardon Police Department four years ago. While he worked at the Geauga County Sheriff’s Office, he got a glimpse of the future, but didn’t expect it to reach such a high volume a year later.
“About 2012 and 2013, we started to hear about it through intelligence and informants. Then, in 2013 into 2014, it just exploded,” Niehus said. “We’re starting to see heroin. In my first 15 years (in Geauga County), I never saw heroin out here.”
Heroin use is generally the last stop for an addict.
Det. Jon Bilicic, with the sheriff’s office, said typically, an addict starts with prescription drugs. When those run out, the abuser starts snorting cocaine, either to cope with remaining pain or for recreation a few times a week. Once they try heroin, they are totally hooked.
“It changes their chemistry, the balance in their brains,” Hildebrand said.
If a heroin addict doesn’t go through an extended treatment program, life is likely to be short, Niehus said.
“The morbidity rate of a heroin addict is pretty high,” he added. “It’s horrible for us when we go on a call and know it’s too late.”
Snorting, smoking or shooting heroin can cause many physical and mental problems. One of the most excruciating is “krokodil” or desomorphine, according to the Huffington Post. It is a cheap heroin knockoff from Russia known to cause such extreme gangrene that the skin around the injection looks like crocodile skin. Fortunately, it is rare in the U.S.
“It never ceases to amaze me the ways people come up with to get that next high,” Niehus said.
In the last six months, Bilicic said the most common cause of overdose he has seen is when a user is supplied with cocaine that contains fentynal or carfentynal in their usual recreational dose, which are 50 to 5,000 times, respectively, more potent than straight opium derivatives.
“(The suppliers’) profits go down if they sell straight coke,” he said, so they cut it with the less-expensive products.
More Narcan is often needed when the two are included or substituted for the user’s usual drug, leading to overdose, so emergency medical crews carry extra and law enforcement personnel are equipped and trained as well.
Niehus said there is some argument about police carrying Narcan, but it is vital to a patient’s survival.
“If you start looking at the number of times (some users) have been brought back with Narcan, it’s very scary. But they get no chance at life if we don’t use it,” he said.
Because fentynal and carfentynal are so potent, officers who are exposed can be affected, so having Narcan handy is important to them as well, Niehus said.
Since the U.S. Food and Drug Agency fast-tracked Narcan to commercial availability two years ago, addicts and their families have been able to buy it.
According to the Narcan website, a carton of two doses is sold for $125, with many insurance policies covering all or part of the cost. EMTs, law enforcement and other organizations can buy it for $37.50 a dose.
It might be why Chardon has seen a drop in overdose deaths since 2016, Niehus said.
It doesn’t mean there is less illegal drug use.
With 12 full-time patrol officers on his force, Niehus might include the rank of detective to deal with the drug problem as well as the crimes associated with it.
Currently, his officers typically encounter drugs when they stop a traffic violator or respond to a shoplifting call from a business, he said, adding most are carrying small amounts of an illegal substance.
Addicts steal to support their habit, costing the business, police and courts to prosecute them, then the penal system to keep them in jail.
Although the sheriff has an impressive collection of drugs from marijuana to bricks of black tar heroin — all tightly wrapped — taking down a big supplier is not common in Geauga County.
Addicts mostly buy their drugs in high-population areas such as Cleveland or Painesville, where the dealers hang out, Bilicic said.
“They know we are very aggressive with (enforcement),” Hildenbrand said.
Drug dealers may live in lavish style in Geauga, but they do their business out of town, Bilicic said.
The cost of trying to keep a lid on opiate use is steep for the sheriff’s office.
“It costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars a year,” Hildenbrand said.
When the opioid epidemic spiked a few years ago, he had to put three more people on the payroll at a cost of about $300,000, just to keep up, he said.
The crisis overlays all cultures and having strong family roots doesn’t inoculate anyone from infection. Information about the disease of addiction may be the only shield for a community.
Hildenbrand said about 500 Amish gathered inside the sale barn on Nauvoo Road in Middlefield last year to hear him and Chardon Municipal Court Judge Terri Stupica talk about the dangers of opiates and opioid abuse, and the telltale signs of drug abuse.
The Amish safety committee requested the presentation and attendees ranged from 8 to 80 years old, Hildenbrand said.
Smaller police forces have their hands full just dealing with ever-increasing vehicle traffic roaring through their communities every day.
Middlefield Village Police Chief Joe Tucholski said he is aware there are a lot of illegal drugs changing hands and being used in the village. Three state routes carrying about 21,000 vehicles a day wind through the village.
“We have a lot of drugs here, a lot of overdoses, too,” he said. “We took drugs out of three cars over the weekend.”
Tucholski keeps at least two patrolmen on the road 24/7 and most of the drugs Middlefield law enforcement appropriates are found in cars patrolmen stop for traffic violations, warrants or arrests for other reasons, he said, adding he knows usage has increased because of the number of overdoses in the village.
Budgets are tightening everywhere and the village has struggled to keep crime to a minimum, he said.
“We’re just doing what we can,” Tucholski said. “We need to have some type of program to teach kids marijuana is a gateway drug, it progresses to meth and heroin. Those will kill you. But there’s no deterrent.”
Hildenbrand has seen the same cross section of people using illegal drugs as Niehus mentioned.
“All these people are not bad people,” the sheriff said.
An addict may have been unemployed for years or wear a three-piece suit to work every day, and each is in denial he or she has a problem, but, deep down, the truth is lurking, he said.
“They all know better,” Hildenbrand said.
No matter the cause, law enforcement everywhere is trying to stem the tide of incoming opioids and outgoing bodies, and the answer is going to include many pieces.
“This problem is not going away soon,” Niehus said. “It’s a money thing.”
