Local Video
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| Heroin is here and it is a problem |
By: By JACI SMITH, Managing Editor
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Posted: Friday, July 4, 2008 4:56 pm
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I expected the phone and e-mail box to be stuffed full of messages when I got into the office on Wednesday.
I was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn’t.
About six months ago, we made the decision to dive back in to reporting on the heroin problem in Northfield. I thought there were too many unanswered questions to not look at it again.
And I write “heroin problem,” because it is one. I can say that with confidence and the facts to back it up.
I’m not sure I could’ve done that before.
I wasn’t here when former police chief Gary Smith gave his now-infamous press conference on July 3, 2007. I was interviewing for this job and doing research on the community.
And one thing I was never completely confident of was the breadth of the “problem.” I could never really get an answer, even after I began working here, on the veracity of Smith’s numbers. He said that as many as 250 young people were abusing opiates in Northfield.
I’m pretty confident now that he was right.
Reporters Suzanne Rook, David Henke and I have interviewed dozens of individuals on both sides of the battle: those who either knew of someone or themselves took or sold heroin and OxyContin (a pharmaceutical opiate) and those who were trying to save the abusers. We’ve spoken with medical officials, school officials, state health officials, county health and public safety officials and statisticians.
In our published stories, you’ll read about young person after young person after young person, from every conceivable background, whose lives were touched by the use or abuse of opiates.
They all say the same thing: It’s in Northfield, it’s easy to become addicted, and the only way to truly sta clean is to get away.
You’ll read about the deputy sheriff who won’t give up the battle and whose work on the county’s drug task force in the last year has turned a bright light on opiate use in northern Rice County.
He says progress is being made, but that it will take nothing less than acknowledgment from all parts of our community that there is a problem to overcome and defeat it.
We don’t have that right now.
You’ll also read about one couple’s decision to turn the tragedy of the overdose death of their son into a call to action. Ken and Judi Malecha struggled mightily with the idea of publicly telling their story and we are honored that they chose us to help them tell it. In return, they asked us to hold accountable those who have the power to help but won’t.
Ken and Judi, we will.
I was worried my phone and e-mail messages would overflow because I was afraid one year later that some would still be a little more concerned with maintaining Northfield’s reputation as an idyllic community by the river than with solving a serious community-wide problem. I was worried that people would think we were sensationalizing drug use in Northfield.
I was wrong.
There were no e-mails or phone messages taking us to task, other than one woman who was upset that on such a serious issue we managed to goof up the final sentence of one of the stories (and she was right!).
Instead, the “hits” on the heroin stories on our Web site continue to climb, and although I don’t have the numbers yet, I’d be willing to bet Wednesday’s issue (and the three after including today’s) will be among our most read.
People are thinking about it and that’s exactly what we wanted to have happen.
The next step: helping those who are already taking action.
— Jaci Smith can be reached at jsmith@northfieldnews.com. |
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