WOOD OFFICIALS WORRIED ABOUT HEROIN

Parkersburg-Area Men Indicted On Drug Charges

Heroin is making serious inroads around the Parkersburg area, but lawmen
say they have started to get results in battling the highly addictive drug.

Federal indictments just handed down against six men from the Parkersburg
area for allegedly trafficking the drug marks the first serious federal
heroin charges to come out of what authorities say is a growing problem
with the drug in and around Wood County.

"This drug is very powerful and very destructive," Chief Deputy Charles
Johnson of the Wood County Sheriff's Department said. "Unfortunately it
looks like it's making a comeback."

A grand jury in Huntington this week brought drug trafficking charges
against Christopher L. Martin, 22, of Marietta, Ohio; Patrick B. Oliver,
24, of Williamstown; Phillip G. Jones, 22, of Parkersburg; Dana M. Ide, 26,
of Parkersburg; Eric S. Barker, 22, of Parkersburg; and Nathan P. Simmons,
27, of Boaz.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Miller Bushong said the charges could bring the men
up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine each if they are convicted.
They will be arraigned on the charges on Dec. 27.

The six also face pending drug charges in state court and are in jail
awaiting their next hearing, except for Simmons who is out of jail on bond.

Both Bushong and Johnson say these indictments are the beginning, rather
than the end, of the struggle with heroin around Parkersburg. Just as
officials had to do in Charleston when heroin, out of wide use for 20
years, first made its reappearance, drug officials in the Mid-Ohio Valley
have had to change their methods to deal with the drug.

"It has a domino effect," Johnson said. "People get a connection and get
addicted. Then their money runs out and they start looking for ways to
support their habit. That leads to other crime. It's a vicious circle."

Wood County officials have had to contend with the problem of being a
border town on a major interstate. Johnson said that with so much traffic
through the area and ways to get into other municipalities and into Ohio,
tracking dealers is very hard.

The same problems that have hampered their efforts to beat back a growing
problem with methamphetamines in rural areas are making the job of getting
a handle on heroin harder.

"But that means we have to work with other departments all the way from
Athens, Ohio, to Clarksburg, W.Va.," said Johnson, a member of the
Parkersburg Narcotics Task Force. "It takes teamwork to win this fight."
Johnson said the other peculiarity of heroin is that it crosses
socio-economic boundaries the way other drugs don't.

"It's not just one area or one group of people,"' Johnson said. "It can go
anywhere."