The La Crosse Police Department is investigating three heroin overdoses that took place last week, one of which resulted in a death. Officials say it’s another sign of the growing heroin problem not only in southwest Wisconsin, but throughout the state as well.
In 2005, Wisconsin’s Department of Justice State Crime Laboratory recorded 158 cases of heroin. Last year, there were 570.
Jeb Sperry is a Special Agent in Charge with the DOJ’s Division of Criminal Investigation. He says usage is growing annually and spreading from the largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison, and into suburbs and rural areas. “It will come into an area, like La Crosse,” he says. “You’ll have a relatively small group of users that are addicted to it, and they will then turn other people onto the drug, and it will multiply from there.”
Stay informed on the latest news
Sign up for WPR’s email newsletter.
Following the recent overdoses in La Crosse, the police department released a statement, saying it’s concerned that a very potent supply of heroin could have made its way into the area.
Jim Bohn is the Assistant Special Agent in Charge with the Drug Enforcement Agency in Milwaukee. He’s not able to comment on the La Crosse situation, but does say heroin purity levels have been on the rise. A decade ago, heroin was about 5-10% pure. Now, Bohn says heroin can be 20-80% pure. “The South American markets, South American heroin, increased the purity levels about a decade or so ago, which means you could snort it instead of just having to inject it, which opened up a whole user market at that point,” he says.
Bohn says the DEA has been educating police across the state, since many departments had not dealt with the drug in previous years.
Wisconsin Public Radio, © Copyright 2024, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.
