The same drug war Washburn County fought back in 2003/04 is back, and this time with a vengeance. According to Health and Human Services Director, Jim LeDuc, it’s not only methamphetamine, now there’s heroin. “Seventy five percent of Wisconsin drug users are on heroin,” he said.
The common reaction to these staggering statistics seems to be, “so what, it’s not my problem, I don’t do drugs.” Actually it is your problem-sideways.
Drug users show up to work erratically, making it difficult for their employers to hold their jobs for them. They also steal. Just think, in this performance-driven society, drugs take the edge off and give so much extra energy, there’s plenty of time to work, take care of the kids, and perform all the chores necessary to mimic the ‘can do’ man or woman. Yes, drug use has traveled up the ladder to adults needing that extra boost no longer supplied by caffeine or a full night sleep.
What else could compare to three days and nights with lots of extra energy? The train that takes you there costs relatively little, and even though there’s a payoff of forty eight hours of solid sleep after the high, you can’t beat the feeling.
Add that feeling to the energy high and the fact that most people lose weight due to drug use, and drug use becomes a siren call to adults everywhere.
But like every other drug, there are prices to pay. Prices like stealing to keep the money coming in for this fast, addicting lifestyle, which raises the cost of goods for the rest of us; not to mention home invasions. Money is purloined from family purses, and pleas are heard of, “could you lend me some money just for a little while? I’ll pay you back.”
There is also child endangerment. If mom’s sleeping for two days solid, who’s watching the kids-packing their lunches-feeding them supper?
Crime, neglect, and desperation rear their ugly heads and over load the Health and Human Service schedule with new cases including more kids needing foster care. Drug users often become erratic and delusional and will do anything to support what now has become an addictive life style.
Happily a new facility has opened in the form of the Dunbar Dental building next to the Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College east of Shell Lake on County Highway B.
Benson-Thompson Inc. bought the building and is leasing it to the county. LeDuc hopes to be in by January, 2017 making room for four staff members, their Alcohol and other Drug Abuse treatment program (AODA), and their mental health treatment clients; freeing up four offices in their current crowded facility in the Ed Elliot building across from the Shell Lake Hospital.
The Health and Human Services department is working together with law enforcement through the Washburn County Prevention Coalition to make the public aware that street drugs are back and are worse than ever.
Burnett County’s Health and Human Services Department is already holding fund raisers such as spaghetti dinners in order to raise money to promote public information in the form of posters and hand outs. They are even looking at buying time on a bill board posting a photo of the sheriffs from the surrounding five county area emphasizing the war is on.
LeDuc was raised in the Twin Cities and adopted from Korea at age three and a half into a family of two older sisters and a lifetime of foster kids; often three to five kids living in their home at the same time. “It gave me insight to what was going on in their minds,”; and pretty much assured his future in social work.
Coming with experience he had as a Navy man in the late 1980’s, the University of Minnesota, and positions he held in both Polk and Dunn Counties, he’s taken the department from old trailers where mushrooms grew under the desks to Shell Lake’s Ed Elliot Building, and now to using another building entirely with a goal of protecting and bettering the community.
Many things have changed for this father of two since his arrival in 2001 along with his wife, and this partial office relocation is a much-needed move. Drugs are here again, and Washburn County is ready to offer help and/or administer punishment where needed and arrange for more foster care for the kids, who are always the innocent victims, and now there’s more room for everyone.
Last Update: Oct 23, 2016 11:24 am CDT
