SHERIFF TELLS SUMMIT: 'HEROIN KILLING OUR KIDS'

It was not a pretty picture that area law enforcement officials painted at the Four County Area Wide Abuse Summit at Mendota Civic Center on Thursday.

"Heroin is killing our kids," La Salle County Sheriff Tom Templeton said. "You can get it almost anywhere."

According to La Salle County Coroner's Office, there have been 10 people in La Salle County who have died from a heroin-related overdose since January 2003. This does not include deaths from other opiates such as methadone and morphine.

Heroin is a growing problem in the Illinois Valley area that is striking a wide array of ages and social classes. Templeton said it is not only the dregs of society that are addicted to the drug, but the boys and girls next door.

He said young people of today don't believe that one-tenth of a gram of heroin will be enough to get them addicted, but they are wrong.

"The mentality is it's not going to hurt us; it's only recreational," Templeton said.

Another dangerous habit that is gaining popularity is injecting enough heroin to become near death and then having the paramedics come to bring them back using drugs that negate the effects of heroin.

Ottawa Township High School resource officer Trish Reed discussed the state of students and drug abuse. She watched a student go from straight As to being a runaway because of drugs.

She helped create the Ottawa Parent Network that allows parents a resource for information and support for student drug abuse.

"As a whole the community needs to be aware of what's going on," Reed said.

Users need to decide to be clean otherwise no amount of rehabilitation is going to work. Reed said 99 percent of the people who go to rehab the first time will relapse.

The key to stopping substance abuse is involvement not just by law enforcement, but by parents and neighbors as well, Reed said. Whether it is just calling the police to let them know suspicious activity to recording the license plates and car models of people visiting a suspected drug house.

To organize that effort, Ottawa Mayor Bob Eschbach and a group of concerned citizens created the Illinois Valley Anti-Drug Coalition.

The coalition is comprised of citizens and several community leaders from Ottawa Police Department, Community Hospital of Ottawa, local school districts, and others.

"I started getting phone calls and people were stopping me on the streets saying they though we have a heroin problem in Ottawa," he said. "It was then I realized I didn't have a handle on the situation and we got moving."

The Fight Against Drugs

LaSalle County State's Attorney Joe Hettel said drug abuse throughout the area has caused felonies to steadily increase over the last few years.

"It was way above anything we have seen before," Hettel said.

The crime increases are in areas that are associated with gaining money such as burglaries, armed robberies and forgeries.

"Every type of crime to get some money is going up," Hettel said.

A panel of politicians also were on hand to discuss what state and federal legislators are doing to help combat the problem of substance abuse.

"This is a great challenge we are all facing," U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill) said.

Weller, whose district includes the LaSalle-Peru and Mendota areas, said substance abuse is a sickness and Congress is working to help those addicted to drugs and alcohol. No Child Left behind reinstated the Safe and Drug Free School Act that provides grants to schools specifically for drug prevention.

Schools throughout the country will receive $600 million because of it.

Community drug coalition also benefit from grants created by the federal government.

Weller said much of the heroin and cocaine that comes into the Illinois Valley is from Colombia and Andean countries.

"Every time we destroy a coca plant or poppy bush that prevents drugs from coming in Illinois," Weller said.

Funds also need to be funneled to local law enforcement officers to put police officers on the streets and keep drug programs active.

State Rep. Frank Mautino (D-Spring Valley) talked about what steps the state has taken to battle substance abuse.

Mautino said Illinois has some of the strictest methamphetamine laws in the U.S. because the state has the ingredients needed to make the drug.

The state has clamped down on access to the materials such as over-the-counter cold medication and anhydrous ammonia.

Sheridan Correctional Center was reopened to help inmates addicted to drugs with treatment in the prison and that help continues on the outside where programs can help them get a job when they are released.

"We can't just incarcerate," Mautino said. "There must be a treatment component."

He went on to say that millions of dollars in grants for treatment and programs are included in the Illinois budget.