MADISON, Wis. (AP) - With heroin use and opioid-related deaths on the rise in Wisconsin, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is focusing on cutting off the flow of drugs through the Mexico border.
Johnson and Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin held a hearing on the epidemic Friday at Waukesha County Technical College in Pewaukee, listening to medical professionals, law enforcement, state legislators and families affected by heroin abuse.
The rate of drug-related deaths almost doubled in Wisconsin from 2004 to 2012. In 2012, 633 Wisconsin residents died due to drugs, most due to opioids.
Johnson, who chairs the U.S. Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, said the issue has to be addressed from many different angles, but he placed the most emphasis on the tie between drug abuse and border security.
“Among many causes of our unsecure border, I place at the top of the list America’s insatiable demand for drugs,” said Johnson, who is being challenged by Democrat Russ Feingold for his Senate seat.
Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel said when heroin came from Southeast Asia in the 1980s, the average heroin purity was about 5 percent. Given the expense of transportation, he said it had to be cut significantly to make it profitable.
Now, Schimel said, they no longer see 5 percent. Instead, with a larger share of heroin coming from Mexico, the purity ranges from 20 percent to 80 percent.
“There is a competition for who has the best heroin, for who has the drug that gets you the most high,” Schimel said.
Those testifying at the two-hour hearing Friday also focused on the need for better treatment options, the need to cut down on availability of prescription opioids and a desire to make the overdose antidote naloxone available without a prescription.
Baldwin said there needs to be better understanding of the root causes of the issue, spanning from drug cartels in Central America to well-intentioned physicians and pharmacists who are prescribing unsafe levels of prescription opioids.
“Once we understand that, we can do a much better job,” Baldwin said. “But boy this epidemic is far ahead of us right now and we need to catch up and we need to do it fast.”
The senators heard from two panels at the hearing including Tyler Lybert, a recovering heroin addict, and Lauri Badura, whose son died of a heroin overdose.
Lybert said he started experimenting with drugs when he was in sixth grade and was using heroin by 16.
“I chose drugs over everything else in my life,” he said.
After at least six treatment attempts, Lybert said he was at a point when he was on the verge of taking his own life. During that time, his mom gave him an ultimatum: either get help or his family would never see him again. That time, with his family in counseling with him, he got clean and has stayed off clean for seven years.
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