Heroin problem hits Caon City

Another Southern Colorado community’s sounding the alert about heroin. Caon City police say they’re facing with the drug problem almost every week.

“We’re seeing a definite increase in heroin on the street and we’re seeing a definite increase in heroin overdose cases,” said Caon City Police Chief Paul Schultz.

He and his officers know how bad the problem is in larger cities, including Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo.

“They (drug dealers) come up through the major city’s and it gets distributed through to the smaller towns,” Sergeant Timothy Walsh told NewsChannel 13, while driving us through the community of roughly 16,000 people.

Sgt. Walsh says heroin deaths in the city are rare, but officers are finding the drug almost every week.

Chief Schultz is open with the community about his surprise with drug’s comeback. “Frankly, I’m kind of shocked. I lived through the scourge of heroin abuse a generation ago and I never thought it would come back.”

He says most users they see are between the ages 20 and 30, and they come from all income levels.

To keep the problem from growing worse, the police department’s focusing on community education.

“We’re trying to inform the community as much as we can that this drug is dangerous, it’s deadly,” said Chief Schultz.

Public education helped rally the community to pay for in a drug sniffing police dog to help find heroin and other illegal drugs in the region.

“Our canine program is completely funded through donations,” Sgt. Walsh told us, “no taxpayer money goes into the canine program.”

Sgt. Walsh says a big benefit helping the department is the small size of the town, and the residents are watching out for each other.

Officers also know who are the “at-risk” kids, and they work with them to help steer them away from the wrong path in life.

According to Chief Schultz, the latest spike in heroin can be blamed on prescription painkillers.

http://www.asam.org/docs/default-source/advocacy/opioid-addiction-disease-facts-figures.pdf

The most recent confirmed numbers from the American Society of Addiction Medicine backs that up. 259 million opioid prescriptions were written in 2012 alone. More than enough to give every American adult their own bottle of pills.

4 out of 5 new heroin users started out misusing prescription painkillers

For Caon City the message is clear, stop the problem now with public education efforts, along with enforcement, or face the consequences later.

If you see something give us a call. If you have a child who might be using heroin do what you can immediately to get assistance for your kid and we’ll be glad to provide any information that we can,” said Chief Schultz, “We’re here to help provide information and enforcement.”