Now to Milwaukee, where in one 3-day period this month,
the medical examiner saw 12 drug overdoses.
The county projects Milwaukee could see more than 400 overdose
deaths in 2017.
Between 2005 and 2014, deaths due to heroin increased by 495%.
Those are lots of numbers that represent the human toll that
opioids, including a new and powerful sedative used for large
animals call Carfentanil, is taking in Milwaukee.
The city's health commissioner is leading a new city-county
task force on heroin, opioids and cocaine.
Bevan Baker joins us now.
Thanks very much for doing so.
- Thank for having me.
- The numbers suggest an explosion of this problem
in Milwaukee.
How do you rank it in terms of public health issues
in your city?
- Certainly the crisis is hot on our list at this time.
We are seeing this explosion not only here in Wisconsin,
but across the nation.
So, this is indeed something that we've got to get our arms
around and we need a public health approach to do it.
- Well, as you say, this is happening nationwide.
What is fueling this?
- Well we have to go back a little bit.
We know that prescription drug practices many years ago--
we're paying a dividend for it in terms of how people become
addicted to over-the-counter medication.
Heroin is cheaper.
And some of the control measures have pushed us to this point.
We need everyone, including physicians,
to wrap their arms around the issue.
- The president this week declared the feds are going to
come down hard on the massive drug problem,
pointing to the borders and presumably interdiction,
is that reassuring to someone in your position?
- I want to see federal support at any level.
And law enforcement is good to be working on this.
But this is just not a law enforcement issue alone.
This is truly a public health epidemic we need to curl back.
So, having Washington push forward and look at our borders
is important.
But we need other types of intervention from Washington.
- So speaking of other types of intervention, though,
how will a task force that you're leading try to tackle
this problem?
- I think we need to make certain everyone in our county
and our city, and across our state,
understands the true human toll here.
This is indeed just like any other public health crisis.
One that we need to go to the root causes and we need to be
able to put resources where they need to be and look at
prevention as our goal.
I'm working with so many dedicated professionals on the
task force.
I believe we're going to make some effort here.
And we have great support from the state of Wisconsin.
I'm proud to say that.
- You, a moment ago, said that you needed more from Washington,
like what?
- Well, what we need is -- Wisconsin recently was a
recipient of about $7.6 million.
We need more prevention dollars to come.
We need them to loosen up some of the criteria in terms of
billing where more helping professionals,
mental health professionals, can actually get paid to do the work
as it relates to counseling and intervention.
- Where do you start with prevention?
- I think we start upstream, way upstream.
We need to make certain people respect the drugs in their
medicine cabinet.
We need to make certain that parents,
guardians and others who have custody of children are talking
to children about the concerns around medication management.
And we need to make certain that medical schools and nursing
schools and anyone that's going to be involved in making certain
that individuals can prescribe medications understand the power
they have.
We have to go way upstream.
- Aren't medical professionals already doing that?
- Well, I think that they're starting to do it.
They are -- here in Milwaukee, the Medical Society of Milwaukee
County has made it one of their top priority issues.
But still, there are people who go from provider to provider to
get medications once they have an addiction.
We've got to figure out a way to either do it through information
technology, and through our the practices to make certain that
we can help those individuals but not let them shop for
over-the-counter prescriptions and then lead them to the road
of heroin addiction.
- Very briefly, I understand you just had a task force
meeting this morning and heard from members of the public.
What did you hear?
- Well, those stories from the public at large are heart
wrenching.
And we're always inviting that at the task force level.
They have skin in the game and they have vested interest.
We want to make certain as a task force that we're inspired
and we're also directed by the public to make certain that
Milwaukee city and county and the state of Wisconsin are safe
for us all.
- All right, Bevan Baker, thanks very much.