MADISON, Wis. (WSAU) — Look for a slight change in the focus of Wisconsin’s anti-drug campaign. That’s according to Attorney General Brad Schimel.
Schimel says his predecessor, J.B. Van Hollen did a wonderful job with The Fly Effect to raise awareness of the dangers of heroin. Schimel says now, he’s going to emphasise the problems with the pain pills that usually lead to heroin use. “We’re actually, at DOJ, changing the focus of our public awareness campaign. The agency has been focusing heavily on heroin. We’re moving the focus now to talk about the prescription opiates, the drugs that people get from doctors and dentists, because those are the place where this all starts. Nobody starts using heroin. They start by getting addicted to these pills.”
The Attorney General says the danger of prescription pills in the home is much more deadly than you think. He uses the analogy of a loaded weapon left unattended. “I would never leave a loaded handgun sitting on the counter at my house, because I’ve got teenaged daughters, and they’ve got friends over all of the time. I would never dream of leaving that out like that because it’s dangerous. Nobody suggests to parents that those prescription narcotics in your medicine cabinet are killing a lot more people than handguns, and yet, nobody’s really thinking about it.”
The new awareness campaign will be launched soon. Schimel says they are going through the usual state procedures to hire a website developer, and they are getting the message ready. “I think we’re pretty close to putting the ink on a deal, and once we’ve got that, we’ll be getting that website up and going pretty soon, so I’m that in the next coming months, I’m hoping before the end of the school year, that we’ll have a message up to people.”
(Listen to our interview with Attorney General Brad Schimel on our website, here.)
