MONROE - There's a story about a young junkie from Dane County that has stuck with Deputy Josh Jerry of the Lafayette County Sheriff's Department since he met her last summer.
He shares details of her stomach-turning situation in a presentation on heroin he's giving at high schools this spring as part of an education effort to reverse the drug's treacherous rise in the area.
Last summer, the young woman shot up before driving to visit her boyfriend in jail. On the way, she nodded off and crashed on Wisconsin 23 north of Darlington, injuring herself.
At the hospital, nurses frantically searched her body for a vein to stick the IV needle. The woman had blown out the veins on her arms, her legs, feet and toes, to feed a heroin habit that cost her about $300 every two days.
"She shot heroin so much, they had to go through her groin," he said.
Later, during the woman's intake to jail, Jerry remembers hearing how the woman's addiction hurt her family. Her parents regularly had to go pick her up from wherever her dealer had dumped her, literally: if he saw signs she was ODing, he'd push her out of the car and drive off.
"He didn't want to get caught with someone who was dead or dying," Jerry said. "That would not be good for business."
The woman's parents had sold their vehicles and were in the process of losing their house, all to help their daughter. She had taken everything from her grandparents, too.
Even after she cleaned them out, she kept using.
Jerry remembers asking her how she got the money to buy heroin. Was she prostituting herself?
At first she said no. Eventually she admitted to giving her dealer oral sex in exchange for heroin. Jerry shakes his head when he gets to this part of her story. She didn't even realize this constituted prostitution, he said.
Jerry has witnessed a lot over the years as a deputy. Now he's a clean-cut guy in his 30s with biceps that bulge out of his polo shirt, but he used to be an undercover drug agent who negotiated about 400 deals, mostly crack, in a disguise that involved green hair and "piercings all over."
The ravages of heroin still manage to shock him, however. The young woman was beautiful and had her life in front of her, he said.
After heroin, "not so much anymore."
The challenge
Her story articulates in sickening clarity the challenge heroin poses to law enforcement, the court system, drug counselors, families and the community at large. How can we help someone who has fallen so far into heroin addiction, abusing themselves and everyone around them? How can we keep others from the same fate?
"I don't know how else we can approach it other than to educate," said Detective Sgt. Joe Thompson, also of the Lafayette County Sheriff's Department. He helped Jerry assemble the heroin presentation.
Some see "the war on drugs" as a punchline, pop culture code for a futile effort. But law enforcement officials agree progress is possible. Meth, for one, "seems to have taken a backseat," said Chief Fred Kelley of the Monroe Police Department. The home-cooked synthetic stimulant was the scourge earlier in the last decade, especially in rural areas.
Regulations that clamped down on the purchase of the stimulants used to make meth "probably did have some deterring effect," Kelley said.
A community effort
Fighting heroin is a community effort.
"It really comes down to family," said Green County District Attorney Gary Luhman. Family members should be supportive, he said, but paying an addicted son's or daughter's bail or traffic tickets only enables their habit. Instead, it takes tough love.
Unless the family can spring for an expensive in-patient treatment program, "the best way for someone to kick a heroin addiction is to sit in jail for a month," Luhman said. "There's no better rehabilitation than sitting in jail." Often, parents need to "man up and find that fine line" between coddling and kicking their adult child to the curb.
"Confront them," Luhman said. "If you suspect or know, you've got to intervene. It's a life or death situation."
Don't protect them from the natural consequences of their behavior, advises Eric Gebhart, an alcohol and drug counselor at Green County Human Services. Instead of enabling their habit with money, he suggests pragmatic assistance: helping an addict get through the initial withdrawal or offering to drive them to regular treatment appointments.
Detoxing in the county jail may cure a dope habit, but incarceration isn't always the answer, especially for dealers, Kelley said.
"Often they come back with a better education in the business," he said. "Recidivism is high. It does seem like there's a revolving door."
Hospitals can also play a role by keeping prescription painkillers - often the gateway to heroin use - out of the wrong hands.
Monroe Clinic "has done a very good job of keeping a lid on medication that could be misused," Luhman said. "The Clinic has been very diligent in trying to prevent drug-seeking behavior."
How to save a life
Jerry is taking his heroin talk to all the high schools in Lafayette County. The Sheriff's Department is offering the presentation to any interested service group, too.
"We will have every school in the county done by May 18," Jerry said. His next presentation is Friday, May 4, at Pecatonica High School.
The Monroe Police Department is also working with Jerry to bring the presentation to schools around Green County.
"I'd like to see it yet this year," said Kelley.
The presentation includes a photo slideshow of "average, normal kids just like you" who have died from heroin, deformed babies born to addicted mothers and addicts with ugly, infected veins. The slideshow is soundtracked to The Fray's 2006 song "How to Save a Life" ("Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend ... And I would have stayed up with you all night/Had I known how to save a life").
On a recent Wednesday morning at Black Hawk High School, the teens sat mute when Jerry asked them after the slideshow if they had questions.
"They're taking it in," Jerry reflected later. "When you throw those disturbing images at them, it kind of makes that mental mark on them.
"If it saves one, it was worth it."
He shares details of her stomach-turning situation in a presentation on heroin he's giving at high schools this spring as part of an education effort to reverse the drug's treacherous rise in the area.
Last summer, the young woman shot up before driving to visit her boyfriend in jail. On the way, she nodded off and crashed on Wisconsin 23 north of Darlington, injuring herself.
At the hospital, nurses frantically searched her body for a vein to stick the IV needle. The woman had blown out the veins on her arms, her legs, feet and toes, to feed a heroin habit that cost her about $300 every two days.
"She shot heroin so much, they had to go through her groin," he said.
Later, during the woman's intake to jail, Jerry remembers hearing how the woman's addiction hurt her family. Her parents regularly had to go pick her up from wherever her dealer had dumped her, literally: if he saw signs she was ODing, he'd push her out of the car and drive off.
"He didn't want to get caught with someone who was dead or dying," Jerry said. "That would not be good for business."
The woman's parents had sold their vehicles and were in the process of losing their house, all to help their daughter. She had taken everything from her grandparents, too.
Even after she cleaned them out, she kept using.
Jerry remembers asking her how she got the money to buy heroin. Was she prostituting herself?
At first she said no. Eventually she admitted to giving her dealer oral sex in exchange for heroin. Jerry shakes his head when he gets to this part of her story. She didn't even realize this constituted prostitution, he said.
Jerry has witnessed a lot over the years as a deputy. Now he's a clean-cut guy in his 30s with biceps that bulge out of his polo shirt, but he used to be an undercover drug agent who negotiated about 400 deals, mostly crack, in a disguise that involved green hair and "piercings all over."
The ravages of heroin still manage to shock him, however. The young woman was beautiful and had her life in front of her, he said.
After heroin, "not so much anymore."
The challenge
Her story articulates in sickening clarity the challenge heroin poses to law enforcement, the court system, drug counselors, families and the community at large. How can we help someone who has fallen so far into heroin addiction, abusing themselves and everyone around them? How can we keep others from the same fate?
"I don't know how else we can approach it other than to educate," said Detective Sgt. Joe Thompson, also of the Lafayette County Sheriff's Department. He helped Jerry assemble the heroin presentation.
Some see "the war on drugs" as a punchline, pop culture code for a futile effort. But law enforcement officials agree progress is possible. Meth, for one, "seems to have taken a backseat," said Chief Fred Kelley of the Monroe Police Department. The home-cooked synthetic stimulant was the scourge earlier in the last decade, especially in rural areas.
Regulations that clamped down on the purchase of the stimulants used to make meth "probably did have some deterring effect," Kelley said.
A community effort
Fighting heroin is a community effort.
"It really comes down to family," said Green County District Attorney Gary Luhman. Family members should be supportive, he said, but paying an addicted son's or daughter's bail or traffic tickets only enables their habit. Instead, it takes tough love.
Unless the family can spring for an expensive in-patient treatment program, "the best way for someone to kick a heroin addiction is to sit in jail for a month," Luhman said. "There's no better rehabilitation than sitting in jail." Often, parents need to "man up and find that fine line" between coddling and kicking their adult child to the curb.
"Confront them," Luhman said. "If you suspect or know, you've got to intervene. It's a life or death situation."
Don't protect them from the natural consequences of their behavior, advises Eric Gebhart, an alcohol and drug counselor at Green County Human Services. Instead of enabling their habit with money, he suggests pragmatic assistance: helping an addict get through the initial withdrawal or offering to drive them to regular treatment appointments.
Detoxing in the county jail may cure a dope habit, but incarceration isn't always the answer, especially for dealers, Kelley said.
"Often they come back with a better education in the business," he said. "Recidivism is high. It does seem like there's a revolving door."
Hospitals can also play a role by keeping prescription painkillers - often the gateway to heroin use - out of the wrong hands.
Monroe Clinic "has done a very good job of keeping a lid on medication that could be misused," Luhman said. "The Clinic has been very diligent in trying to prevent drug-seeking behavior."
How to save a life
Jerry is taking his heroin talk to all the high schools in Lafayette County. The Sheriff's Department is offering the presentation to any interested service group, too.
"We will have every school in the county done by May 18," Jerry said. His next presentation is Friday, May 4, at Pecatonica High School.
The Monroe Police Department is also working with Jerry to bring the presentation to schools around Green County.
"I'd like to see it yet this year," said Kelley.
The presentation includes a photo slideshow of "average, normal kids just like you" who have died from heroin, deformed babies born to addicted mothers and addicts with ugly, infected veins. The slideshow is soundtracked to The Fray's 2006 song "How to Save a Life" ("Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend ... And I would have stayed up with you all night/Had I known how to save a life").
On a recent Wednesday morning at Black Hawk High School, the teens sat mute when Jerry asked them after the slideshow if they had questions.
"They're taking it in," Jerry reflected later. "When you throw those disturbing images at them, it kind of makes that mental mark on them.
"If it saves one, it was worth it."