The state is giving Green Bay police a grant to help combat the heroin epidemic. The $25,000 will help hire a facilitator to help addicts get off heroin, and from using the drug in the first place.
Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said they’re trying to find innovative solutions. “Treatment and prevention and education are going to be huge components of this, and those only happen if you have a facilitator,” Van Hollen said.
Van Hollen said heroin is now a major problem for law enforcement across the state. “Wherever we go, I am asking what their number one issue is in law enforcement right not, and the answer has almost unanimously been the heroin epidemic.”
Heroin cases increased by 350 percent in Wisconsin between 2006 and 2011, and the number of counties with heroin cases grew from 22 to 56 between 2005 and 2012.
The Green Bay program should be up and running by next year.
