Advisory Group Close To Revealing Plan To Tackle Opioid & Heroin Epidemic
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Local leaders are getting closer to figuring out how they plan to tackle an opioid and heroin addiction epidemic.
They've been working as part of a 75-member advisory group.
Thirty members of the group met on Monday and their overall goal is to stop overdose deaths.
The group has been meeting since 2014 and has been working under United States Attorney David Hickton.
In October, they are expected to issue a plan of their ideas and the data they have collected.
They want to pool together the public health and law enforcement resources. As part of the plan, law enforcement officers would share their intelligence on drug markets with the health workers to help fight addiction.
The University of Pittsburgh's Institute of Politics is going to issue the plan in October. Previously, they issued an action plan on opioids in 2014.
Hickton said his office will continue to prosecute the drug dealers, but the new efforts are being made to catch the problem before it becomes a criminal case and before it becomes a deadly drug overdose.
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