Marion County Prosecutor’s Office starts drug intervention program
Marion County Prosecutor Ray Grogan hopes a new system his office has initiated will aid drug addicts get into cure plans and curb the quantity of overdose fatalities domestically.
The Prosecutor’s Intervention Plan (PIP) acquired acceptance from the Marion County Board of Commissioners on April 21 and Grogan claimed it will start serving people today in the very near foreseeable future. He stated only those who have been charged with small level possession of drugs (fourth and fifth diploma felony charges) and initially-time drug offenders with no previous felony prices on their file will be eligible for the system.
No a single who has been billed with drug trafficking will be allowed to take part.
“What we’re going to target on is those individuals who are addicted to extremely unsafe medications,” Grogan claimed. “I assume we’ve finished a really very good task addressing the ‘supply side’ (drug traffickers) of the equation. We’ve gone after all those who market medication. We’ve gotten some quite major sentences on some individuals who’ve been trafficking medicine in our neighborhood. We have done a superior career receiving the prescription drugs off the road and finding the traffickers despatched off to prison. On the ‘demand side’ (drug addicts), we have some perform to do.”
More:4 persons arrested in two the latest Marion County drug raids
A lot more:Two people today arrested, medications and firearms seized in raid of Marion home
Extra:Marion County legislation enforcement seizes crack cocaine, meth, ecstasy in Henry Street raid
He explained the software will concentration on reduced degree felony drug offenders, giving them the chance to get their lives back on track as a result of treatment method and counseling. A coordinator dependent at the prosecutor’s office environment will oversee the method.
“If they do the treatment method for 30 days, then we will dismiss the charge, simply because they’ve been willing to show that they can get the assessment, that they’re inclined to start off the cure,” he explained. ” At the summary of that 30 days, that does not mean the method is dismissed. They’re going to have to continue to be in the plan for an additional three months on top of the primary 30 times.
“The moment they get to the 3- or four-month mark — working with the coordinator, checking in when a 7 days, signing releases of details so the coordinator can see the development they’re generating with the therapy supplier — the moment they’re on that highway to recovery, the prices will be dismissed and we will not carry on with an indictment.”
He noted that the prosecutor’s business will seek indictments towards those people who do not complete the application or who do not comply with terms of the application.
Grogan stated a overview of the lethal overdose statistics for Marion County above the past a few yrs was alarming and served as the catalyst to create the intervention method.
“At the close of 2021, I appeared at the quantities of deadly overdoses in Marion County,” he claimed. “In 2019, we had 30. In 2020, we had 42. And in 2021, the figures that we have as of April 1, are 33, but there’s nevertheless eight autopsies of suspected overdose victims that have not come back still. So that quantity is possibly heading to be higher than 40 again, which is a great maximize in terms of in which we have been just a few years ago.
“Those people are 40 people today. These are 40 mothers, fathers, sons, daughters — residing, breathing souls who are no longer right here mainly because of this poison.”
Fentanyl is the big “poison” that has pushed the overdose quantities higher in recent many years, Grogan mentioned.
“We have experienced just an influx of fentanyl that is appear into this group,” he said. “We haven’t experienced heroin situations in months. We just do not see them any longer. The bulk of what we see are fentanyl and methamphetamine that are both coming about a very porous southern (United States) border and my fellas are in the trenches striving to do anything that we can to remedy this challenge. But presented the figures, we have to do a thing else to support people and the time is now to do a little something else.”
In addition to the county commissioners, Grogan reported Marion Municipal Court docket, Marion County Relatives Courtroom, and nearby cure vendors have voiced help for the method.
Grogan said funding for the software is being furnished by the Marion County Board of Commissioners, MARMET Drug Job Pressure, and Crawford-Marion ADAMH Board, each and every of which is contributing $15,000 to the plan. He mentioned his office will also look for out grant packages to give further funding for the program.
People today participating in the method will be responsible for spending for the treatment method they obtain, Grogan explained.
Electronic mail: ecarter@gannett.com | Twitter: @AndrewACCarter
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/7BKAMBCIJ5IBLK2WADFPKDWMFE.jpg "Former fraud prosecutor and ‘COVID Czar’ joins Akin Gump in New York")
