Melton: Drugs a problem in Morrison

MORRISON – When a panel discussed whether the city had a drug problem, police Chief Brian Melton did not hesitate in his response.

“Yes, it does.”

A crowd of 50 to 60 people packed the Program Room at Odell Public Library on Thursday night to listen to Melton and two other panelists – Safe Passage Coordinator Alison White and Dan Hovey, captain of Emergency Medical Services, Paramedic, CCP, rescue task force, Morrison Community Hospital – share their expertise on drug use patterns and its impact on the community.

Marc Adami, with The Whiteside Forum, said the purpose of the forum was to allow all citizens the opportunity to ask leaders tough questions, such as Thursday night’s panel discussion on drug use in Morrison.

Morrison’s police chief said drugs are not only in the community, they’re also transported through town.

“We certainly have more drugs going through Morrison then we do staying in Morrison,” Melton said.

Morrison has drug trends. Right now, with the exception of marijuana, methamphetamines and opiates are the top two drugs trending on the community, he said.

Meth in Morrison and surrounding communities was bad about 15 years ago, Melton said. It seemed to dry up from the area but has “made a huge comeback.”

Now that it’s returned, “it’s a huge problem,” he said.

Paranoia, a side effect of meth use, is “a big problem” for his department because users can become “violent and unpredictable.”

The effect of drug use presents its own problem at the hospital, Hovy said.

Sometimes people enter their emergency room in crisis, while other times drug users come to the hospital in hopes of getting drugs.

“A lot of time they want help, other times they want to get drugs out of the hospital,” Hovy said.

There was an opioid overdose death in 2016, but all five of the overdoses that have occurred in Morrison in the past 3 years came from the same home, Melton said. Of the five overdoses, four were the same person.

“We just saved them again 2 or 3 weeks ago,” Melton

When opposing views over the use of Narcan, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses, surfaced in the crowd, White used it as an opportunity to explain the importance of the drug and understanding addiction.

The path to sobriety is different for each person, White said. On average, it takes someone 14 attempts before they remain sober.

For White, it took five overdoses and her final incarceration before reaching sobriety.

“I’m in recovery. I was a girl who was resuscitated five times and everybody said why are you doing this. I was that girl,” White said.

White partners with about 12 different facilities to get people that help they need. When she gets a new case, she said she pays little attention to which substance is being used because it makes little difference.

“They all look the same. The results are the same. The side effects are all the same, alcohol included,” White said.

Policing the problem

Aside from drug charges, thefts and burglaries are the most common offenses committed by users, Melton said, but there’s others like domestic violence.

But police interactions with drug users doesn’t always result with are arrest.

A Sept. 24 incident with a man under the influence of meth caused a soft lockdown at local schools, Melton said. The man traveled to Clinton, Iowa, where he was taken to a facility for help.

“Nobody went to jail, but we still helped this guy through a drug problem,” Melton said. “Just because we’ve had 11 arrests this year doesn’t mean we’re not trying or we’re not helping people and different ways.”

Addressing drugs is a community wide effort that goes beyond Morrison Police Department, Melton.

The police department is probably aware of most of the drug houses in the community, but don’t assume the police know everything, Melton said.

“We rely on our community to help us and tell us things and report things, so don’t assume we already know,” Melton said.

Toward the end of the night Rev. Mike Selburg, pastor of The First Presbyterian Church of Morrison, said there’s an initiative among the faith-community to address drug related issues in the community.

“The Ministers Council has talked about this very seriously since April,” he said.

The council has talked with professionals and spent the summer thinking how to address the drug issue, but arriving at a solution needs to be a community effort community, Selburg said.

“We have the opportunity to continue but it can’t be just the ministers trying to do it, it can’t be just the churches trying to do it, it can’t be just the school. It needs to be a full community outreach program,” Selburg said.

A little less than half of the audience raised its hand when Selburg asked how many people were interested in continuing the conversation.

“It’s up to us to make our communities the place we want our communities to be, so we have to keep working on it,” Selburg said.