| When
you check out the Web site for the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike
Force, you’ll see photos of different kinds of drugs that
have been found in Northern Kentucky.
From 251 pounds of marijuana to seized funds, to cocaine packed
in gram baggies, to a complete meth lab, the pictures tell a story
of drug use in the area that can’t help but touch Owen County.
“They tell us they’ve picked up more opiates in this
year than in the last five years combined,” said Trent Holbert,
who is leading an effort to get a drug awareness and prevention
program started in the community. “These are things they
are picking up in Boone, Kenton, Campbell and Grant counties.
This is what they have, but this is also what we have.”
In order to increase awareness, Holbert, and other concerned individuals
from the community, will host and participate in a community rally
at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 14. The rally will be held in the gymnasium
of the Bowling Middle School.
“Our goal is to encourage the community to get behind this
effort and to rally together for this cause,” Holbert said.
Holbert first began working on the drug issue a couple of months
ago.
He said he was burdened by the problem in the community. He said
he was talking with a friend of his, Matthew Gullion, formerly
of Gallatin County, and told him of his burden. Gullion is the
president of REACH (Reaching Every Addict Through Christ’s
Help) in Magoffin County.
When REACH began in Magoffin County, it was the result of 34 overdoses
in one year.
“He told me they’d been praying for a community to
adopt in order to allow the program to grow,” Holbert said.
“It’s definitely a God thing.”
One of the speakers at Saturday night’s rally will be Jim
Liles, director of the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force. Liles
is supposed to tell the community what kinds of drugs strike force
members are encountering every day and what to expect in the near
future..
“He told me that the new drug they are seeing is heroin,”
Holbert said. “That’s because there’s been such
a crack down on the ingredients in meth.”
The drug is known on the street as Mexican brown and it’s
laced with painkillers.
“He also told me that we’re going to get hit hard
soon with Mexican meth, which is starting to hit the streets in
Northern Kentucky,” Holbert added. “I’ve asked
him to wake us up.”
In Alexandria, one of the areas covered by the strike force, there
were six overdoses in one day recently.
“We know that this stuff leaks into the community,”
Holbert said.
This will be the third REACH rally in the area in the past two
months, with the first two drawing close to 100 people at each.
The emphasis of REACH is to provide the support needed for an
addict to get off drugs and to stay off drugs. There are also
support networks put in place to help the families of addicts
help themselves as well.
Five task forces will be formed as part of the REACH initiative
— family support, judicial review, school/youth awareness,
community crime watch and recovering addicts. Each task force
will focus on a different area to fight the issue locally.
The resource team, for example, works with organizations that
provide help to addicts and serve as a liason between the addict
and the best help available.
Other speakers include Owen County Coroner Lannis Garnett, Owenton
Mayor David “Milkweed” Wotier, a local law enforcement
officer and Monterey Baptist Church pastor Tony Watkins, who also
works with students through the KEYS program.
“We really just want to rally the people to this important
cause,” Holbert said. “It’s time we faced the
facts and did something about it.”
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