TIGERTON, WI (WTAQ) – Shawano County Sheriff’s Department is taking time to inform the community about common drug use and abuse in the county.Sheriff Officials are focusing on Public Health, Public Safety and Economic Impact of Drug abuse in the county.
Addressing members of the Tigerton Community recently, Sheriff Detective Tim Laluzerne says the most common drug found is meth.
“It is more common than marijuana right now and it is taking over Shawano streets.”
He says meth is everywhere.
“If you would have told me that we would have been making multiple pound levels seizures of methamphetime I would have told you that you are nuts, yet that is what I am dealing with on a daily basis.”
Laluzerne says the other big concern is prescription drug abuse and said drug take-back days like we just had over the weekend, are great, but number trends from last year’s study is a concern.
“We have about 40,000 people in Shawano County. It is a little disturbing to me that were 114,000 prescriptions for hydrocodone and 74,000 doses of amphetamines prescribed just in Shawano County.”
He says the problem is not just in Shawano County. In 2017, 1,171 drug overdose deaths occurred in Wisconsin.
He says most people don’t consider the local pharmacies as the biggest source of drugs, but that is the case and says the culture change may have to start at the doctor’s office.
“They are writing prescriptions and they think that they are helping people, but it is really creating some problems that they are not intending.”
Shawano County continues to work on ways to tackle drug use and abuse.
