 I am JoLinda LeClaire, Director of Drug Prevention Policy for Vermont. I oversee the Governor's Opioid Coordination Council, which Governor Phil Scott established by executive order in January 2017. Since then, the Council has focused on its mission to improve Vermont's response to our opioid challenges through prevention, treatment, recovery, and enforcement. This crisis touches everyone in our state. Many Vermonters have family members and loved ones who have become addicted after receiving opioid prescriptions for pain. Others were exposed to opioids and other drugs through friends, dealers, and traffickers. Regardless of how they were exposed, we know we have among us many who now have the chronic isolating and too often deadly disease of addiction. We are making progress. Treatment is available across the state through Vermont's nationally known hub and spoke system of treatment. Recovery centers in our communities are providing effective wraparound support to help people achieve long-term recovery. Many communities are building prevention coalitions to provide our children and families the tools they need to be resilient in the face of life's challenges and traumas. Vermont law enforcement has steadily worked to increase community safety and to decrease the supply of illegal drugs. They also work hard to support prevention strategies that will reduce the demand for opioids. There is more we can do and must do to turn the curve on Vermont's opioid challenges. Drug prevention education is a top priority for schools and communities. Increasing intervention opportunities in emergency rooms and other places will help more people enter treatment and recovery. Individuals and families in recovery need support to obtain jobs and rebuild their lives and support for harm reduction through safe and appropriate use and disposal of drugs and syringes will increase safety in homes and communities. Something we all can do to take every opportunity to raise awareness and reduce stigma by talking about addiction. To highlight the science of addiction as well as the cultural, social and economic challenges associated with addiction, the producers and hosts of Vermont Cable Access and the Opioid Coordination Council have created an eight-part series entitled Understanding Vermont's Opioid Crisis, Working Together to Create a More Resilient Community. The fifth in the series is about enforcement. In this segment, host Pat McDonald focuses on the Opioid Coordination Council's strategies to reduce the supply of and demand for opioids and other drugs in Vermont through law enforcement efforts. This includes roadside drug driving tests, drug treatment courts, investigations, prosecution and corrections. Thank you, Jolinda, for your introduction. And I'd like now to introduce our guest for this evening is Commissioner Tom Anderson. Commissioner, welcome. You're first time on the show. And a repeat guest, Chief Tony Faco, City of Montpelier. Nice to see you here. Thank you. This is a very important topic, as Jolinda talked about. And if you'll remember, Governor Shumlin spent his entire state of the state in 2014 talking about the heroin and prescription opioid abuse in Vermont. And I was one of many who was saying, what is he doing? I had no idea that we had the problem we have. And I was really surprised. I just told the chief. I actually wrote a note and said, thank you for doing that because I was completely clueless. And then when Governor Scott took over, one of the first things he did was create an opioid coordination council. And Commissioner, you are on the opioid as the co I am the co chair of the Coordination Council. That was actually the first thing that Governor Scott did out of the box. So could you talk a little bit about that? Absolutely. So it's 22 members strong. And it cuts across a wide swath of from honors from law enforcement to treatment providers to health department individuals to community active members to recovery coaches. And what we're really trying to do with the opioid coordination council is look at this holistically and come up with some recommendations, which we've done to move forward in the areas of treatment, prevention, recovery, and law enforcement. That's great. Could you talk specifically since this show is about law enforcement? Do you recall all the recommendations or some of them that that focus on law enforcement? Yeah, and I've told people before, you know, law enforcement to me has has sort of the easy part of this equation. As difficult as it is, we have sort of the easy part of this equation. So the recommendations that the opioid coordination council came out with with respect to the law enforcement was number one, that we have a better roadside testing for drug driving. That is a real hole in Vermont's law enforcement area. So that was one that the opioid coordination council supported. And that would be oral fluid testing. The second was to sort of increase law enforcement resources in the area of drug enforcement in sort of a very narrow band. And you know, where we miss some investigations are those cases that are sort of locally driven. And they're not quite big enough. The dealers are not quite big enough to hit the radar screen of the Vermont Drug Task Force. And but they're more than kind of the local PDs can handle. So that was an area we really tried to focus on to try to get additional resources in that area. And then finally, we also we also were looking at increasing the number of drug recognition experts. And again, that goes back toward that goes back to, you know, roadway safety with respect to people that are driving impaired by any number of drugs, whether opioids or marijuana, or any other type of mind altering, mind altering drug. And for those that don't know, a drug recognition expert is exactly that as an expert. They've been specially trained to detect when somebody's operating a motor vehicle. There's not that many of them that have been trained so far. I don't know why I thought 40. Is that right? I'm not sure what the number is right now. But we have made we've done pretty well. And I mean, we've we've got classes that have kind of pushed through each year. And you know, I think we're in pretty good shape with the areas. And you know, what we're trying to do is reduce the time it takes to get a DRA out to the scene. But but again, that is again, that is somebody's opinion. It's an expert opinion that I think this person is under the influence of some some type of drug, which then, you know, if we had the oral fluid roadside oral fluid swab testing would confirm their observations with a test that would say that person has whatever the screening drugs are that they're looking for. Now that you brought that up, they they had a bill to authorize the oral fluids, but it died in the Senate, because they were worried about civil rights, because it's it's taken your bodily fluids. And they they were so it died, I think in the Senate, it was it did die. It's been passed now twice in the house. It's been killed twice now in the Senate Judiciary Committee. And so I think the the idea of, you know, some of the arguments they use against it are its collection of DNA when when that's not accurate, because the statute specifically precludes the collection for that purpose. The head of the lab, Dr. Conti, testified that that would be contrary to their protocols and the protocols required by the FBI. And, you know, the idea that, you know, right now we are permitted to take blood in a drug driving test. And the idea that taking blood is somehow less intrusive than taking someone's I didn't even know that, that, you know, taking someone's saliva is is a mistake. It's far less intrusive than taking someone's blood. And, you know, the science behind it, the House took significant testimony on the science behind the oral fluid swap testing. The science is good. And the actual test of it would be a test we've been conducting at the lab for the last 20 years on bodily fluid, whether it's blood or other type of bodily fluid. I'm sure the Senate heard the same testimony as the House. Well, there, if they didn't, it was available to them. And I know that a number of people testified in Senate Judiciary about, exactly about that. I know Dr. Condi did also. So there's a lot of misinformation about what oral fluid does and what it doesn't do and what it provides and what it doesn't provide. You know, my bottom line is it provides another piece of evidence to prosecutors and to juries on whether a person is impaired by drugs or not. And to me, from a public policy standpoint, more evidence is better than less evidence. If we arm prosecutors and juries with as much evidence as we can, that that's a good thing. Can I ask you, when can they take blood? So blood can be taken if they, again, it's, you know, driving is a privilege. So it's, it's, you have implied consent laws. So blood is normally taken now. If someone consents to it, if we, if, for example, might be someone that's driving in pair, they're showing all the signs of impairment, a DRA indicates that they think they're under the influence. Now we could ask the person to provide a blood sample and they can decline or they could, they can agree to it. Now it's often taken in situations where we have a serious accident, a serious bodily injury has been caused during an accident or there's been a fatality. So and in those situations, now the difference between that is we have to get a warrant for blood. So you would also, and that is by really Supreme Court, U.S. Supreme Court decision that, you know, it's so intrusive for Fourth Amendment purposes that it requires a warrant. Now once you go down the path of having to get a warrant, it can take a long time. You know, you've got to find, you have to have an affidavit prepared, you have to have a judge located, the warrant then provided, if it's, if there's probable cause, and then you have to take the person to the hospital and the blood drawn. And frankly what we're seeing now is some hospitals simply won't do it. Oh really? Yeah. So we've had some situations where hospitals, even with a warrant, simply won't do it. So again, you know, blood is a very ineffective way to be testing someone for driving while impaired with drugs. And this just, the tests just say you've taken drugs. It doesn't say you're impaired, which is, we haven't gotten there yet. Like with alcohol is, there's a number. And if you go over that number, you're considered impaired. With opioids and other things, it's only that you've consumed. Correct. So I mean, the way I've tried to explain is like, people try to think of it in this mentality like alcohol. It's got to be a number, and if I don't have a number, it's no good. And it really, that's the wrong way to think about it. Now, some states have adopted that a certain level and that's at the presumptive level. There's not a lot of good science behind that. So, you know, we were trying to adopt was simply, this is just another piece of evidence. It doesn't, that the jury can consider and should be able to consider in determining whether that person was driving under the influence of some impairing drug or not. Because that's what the law or that's what the law prohibits. That you're driving impaired by a drug or alcohol or combination of those two things. Okay, so before I turn over to the chief, could you give us this 10,000-foot view of the opioid crisis? You, I don't know if you have statistics with you, but you gave us statistics at a meeting I was at the other night that just, I mean, it was amazing. I tried to cull those down. So, you know, from just to give you an idea from a national level. In 2016, there were over 64,000 Americans died from a drug overdose. And about two-thirds of those were from opioids. So, that's about 175 people each day that die in the United States from a drug overdose. Two-thirds of those those from opioids. So, to give it a put it in perspective, which I always like to do, is that that is each year we lose more people to an opioid overdose than we lost in the entire Vietnam War. The Americans killed during the entire Vietnam War. Wow. So, I think to me that brought home the, you know, how how extensive this is. And that's every year. Yeah. I would say if we had 175 people dying of Ebola every day, there'd be a different response than we have right now. So, that's at the national level. At the Vermont, at the state level, 107 people died in 2017 from opioid overdoses. And that's been a steady increase really from since 2010. We hope we've bent the curve on that. There was about a hundred and I think six in 2016. But that's up from about 41 deaths in 2010. So, it's been a it's been a steady increase. Right now, the estimate is about 15 to 20,000 Vermonters or addicted to opioids. And that Vermont, this is not something we want to like, it's not a claim to fame. But we are, is one of the top five states for her and use as a percentage of its adult population. Oh, we're always in the top five or ten on everything good or bad. So, it's not good. Yeah. So, I wish I could tell you we've turned the corner on this. I can't. I'm hopeful that we're doing some things now that will turn the corner on it. But, you know, right now I can't say that we have. You know, it's really this opioid epidemic has been a cancer on the state. Yes, this is terrible. And I went to the opioid recognition awareness day and I heard you speak there and you were saying you just, you don't know, five years, ten years, there's no answer yet. Yeah. And we're working hard at it. I know you're going to talk a little bit later about the prescription opioids, but that really is the root cause of this problem. The overprescribing of opioids over the last, you know, it's gotten better, but over the, for any number of years. The pharmaceutical company said it was safe, right? Well, they did. And, you know, I, maybe not. And, but they, they all had to be prescribed. Yeah. They had to, a doctor had to prescribe those pills. And the doctors don't like to hear that, but it was the overprescribing of opioids. And I think that's, that was the conclusion of the president's commission on, that he set forth on the opioid, but it was the overprescribing of these drugs for an awful long period of time. Well, you know, my thing is, and when you go to the doctor, no matter when you go, they say from zero to ten, what, where's the pain? Which, which means to me, I could, why can't I be at zero? So, as a client, as a customer, I'm expecting zero is a norm. So, get me to zero. Right. I mean, otherwise why are you asking me zero to ten? That's, I, I think that discussion started a few years ago when all of this came about. Yeah. And I think, I think the president's zero, you know, the president's commission was, you know, critical of that, of that being adopted, I think by the end, it's like the fifth vital sign, which is, which is the only vital sign that's subjective. Yeah. All other vital signs are objective tests, blood pressure, heart rate. What's painful to me may not be true. Exactly. I might, my four might be your eight. Probably. I'd agree to that. So anyway, chief, you are here at the local level in Montpelier, and you see the streets and the people. What do you see here in Montpelier and with here when you meet with the other chiefs? What are they seeing? I think the most profound change that we've all experienced is our defining our jobs. I mean, if you were to ask me ten years ago, five years ago, is it going to be standard that all police officers are going to be carrying a lock zone? Yeah. To really changing the lens from, you know, the very serious crime problem that the drug trade creates, and it's still there, but what is our role in the overall umbrella of this is a health crisis? So at the local level, on the positive side, a couple of things. One, it's really brought us closer as far as agencies at all levels. Montpelier has, we've had a lot of law enforcement and health-related success in the last several years, and it's because of really strong partnerships with Berry City, especially with the Vermont State Police, drug task force in particular, and our federal partners, ATF, FBI, DEA, and the coordination that you see between the state's attorney, the attorney general's office, and the United States attorney's office, can really make, you know, when done right, can really make a difference in a local community. And on a positive, another positive note is, on a small scale, we can sometimes see, more quickly, the effectiveness of our strategies. And it's not just any one thing that we're doing, but certainly the, virtually all of our robberies and burglaries that we've solved in the last several years, we were able to relate to, in some form or other, is an excess to addiction, or trafficking. And the, so one of the things, as far as the, kind of the mindset changing for law enforcement, is where can we help, help facilitate the link between, you know, the addicted community and the individual we come in contact with, to help. And we'll talk about that later with Project SafeCatch, and some other, other things that are listed, some of the national best practices, and things that were, and I know Rutland's about ready to kick off, we've already just barely started doing it. And so we've seen some significant reduction in robbery and burglary, in particular for 2017. It's also the first year in several years we didn't have an overdose fatality. Unfortunately, we've already had one for this year. So that, but it's, that part is sporadic, but I look at the overall crime statistics there and, but the job has really changed and the partnership is stronger. So how do you train for that? I mean, because I, I heard Chief Pozo from Burlington. Del Pozo. Del Pozo. He said, this was, well, even with all of his amazing background, he said, this was fairly new to him. It's not, it's very complicated, and he's had to really, he has had to be trained, and so is all of his officers to know what they're looking for, what they're dealing with. And I read an article where once you said, I say Narcan, what Narcan or Naloxone. Naloxone, when they come, when you use that, they come out of it and there, there could be violence. They can. And so you've got to, you've got to really prepare. What kind of training is available for your folks and for state police? Sure. We've all had a, you know, we had our training when we adopted using Naloxone in 2015. It was after the Vermont State Police had already started it. So I think we were probably like the, within the top three departments that started using it back then, and Dr. Chris Lacones came in and, and I had some pushback from a few folks in my department saying, you know, hey chief, we're not medics. Right. You know, and even though we do all the other first aid piece, but after we had the training, you know, with Dr. Lacones, we learned, it was every, even those officers were totally engaged. Right. And wow, it made a big difference. Because you've got to do something right away for these, for these. Well, it's also for the officer safety. Because we're in contact, we're doing searches. You know, a canine could be searching a vehicle, and all of a sudden, you know, open up a package inadvertently, and it's in the air. There's been multiple cases around New England of police officers, tactical teams that have had exposure to fentanyl, that have had to be treated. Mostly precautionary, but it's certainly anything that we anticipate that we're going to be in contact with narcotics. Right. It's our policy, that we need to have naloxone available to us. It has changed, I mean, the fentanyl has, I mean, it can be absorbed through the skin, and there are any number of... And that's powder or oil? It's powder. But it is extremely dangerous, and can be extremely dangerous to police officers when they go in. Oh, wow. You know, to do a search, it has altered the way we do field testing for heroin and other it's a much more... We've actually had Dr. Conti, the head of the lab, train officers on how to do it the way a lab technician would do it, you know, with gloves and appropriate protective gear, and that's really just a field test to see whether it's, you know, it tests presumptively for heroin or whatever drug you're testing for. So it is a... Fentanyl is an extremely dangerous drug. The other thing I'd say is, you know, Tony is modest on what they've, you know, what police officers are required to do now, and it is remarkable how it's changed over, you know, my career in law enforcement, where we're asking a tremendous amount of our police officers right now. They are not only enforcing the law, that's probably a very small part of what they're doing right now. They're doing, you know, they're doing rescues, they're doing outreach for treatment, they're doing, they're almost quasi-social workers now. It's just a tremendous amount that we're having our the police do. Well, they've been encouraging most everybody to walk, to have an Arkham. My husband just had surgery, and because they gave him opioids, they, we, we had an Arkham at home, and they showed us how to, how to use it, and I was just surprised at that, but I, but I guess someday, God forbid, you'd be able to use it. Yeah, and I think, you know, the state force has been carrying it now for a while. I think the large majority of law enforcement in the state carry it now, not at all, but... So has things changed down at the academy then too, I'm sure. There's been a lot of shift in focus down at the academy. Sure, we're training, you know, our, our trainings change, they monitor, I mean, that's not, that's the criminal justice training council, but they're, they're fully on top of what the training protocol should be for, in, in all of these areas. I'm sure in the correction office, I've got to have somebody in from corrections to talk about that. That must be another whole show. So, and I know that those, we've had places where people can drop their, their syringes, that we even had drug, drug drop-offs, and that's, that's, you've got it here in town, right? Yes. And has that been successful all over Vermont? Do you know maybe the commission? It's been heavily, it's been greatly successful. Right. Well received. The DEA hosts periodically drug take-back days. Yes. We publicize that through our prevention and outreach partners in, in my area here in Montmartre, it's Central Mont, New Directions Coalition, and it's just really important to, to get rid of the meds, because for variety of reasons, if they're expired, I mean, it's just, they don't need to be sitting in somebody's cabinet. Right. And especially when we're talking about narcotics that have a very high street value. Yeah. And it can also, you know, increase the risk of victimization for people to be burglarized or robbed, if, if it's known that they have these drugs just sitting, sitting there. It's good not to flush it down the old toilet either for the environment, just so that, it's not good in the water. Yes. And the other thing too is our, you know, just having a needle disposal box is not clear. This year we, we made sure they're in all of our city, city buildings and facilities throughout city hall, police department, fire department, and do people use them? I mean, they, yes they do. Really? Yeah. And it's obviously, once they, you don't approach them, they're using them and you don't want to, there's no fear of being arrested or questioning. Correct. And, and it could be also for legitimate purposes too, you know, what we're trying to make sure does not happen, you know, we get calls all the time, every police department does, hey, there's some needles in a park. Right. Or, you know, so where are they being discarded? And so that's really what we're trying to, to stop by having these readily available, is that they're safe, they're handled by our fire department, they're the ones that go around and collect them and then they're properly disposed of as hazardous material sharps. Yep. And you said that, you said should I ask how many syringes are given out every year? Well, the two. Where do we do that? So, we have syringe, they're called syringe exchanges, they're given out at a lot of the Department of Health Howard Center in Burlington. There are a number of places around the state that they are, they are provided for free. So, the two issues, the drug take-back day has been a huge success. Right. There's lines of people I've seen. Yeah, you know, we are in the process of putting drug disposal boxes in all of the barracks, so it'll make it more convenient for people to drop off their drugs. Sheriff Marcou and LaMoyle County's been really a superstar in that area. He's been the one kind of coordinating the pickup of all the drugs because it's just not as easy as collecting them. You then have to collect them, you've got to get them to DEA so they can be destroyed appropriately. And so, he, Sheriff Marcou has done really Yeoman's work on coordinating the pickup of all these drugs and getting them to DEA quickly. So, that's been a huge success and DEA is a tremendous partner in that. And just while I'm thinking about it, you know, the other thing is, you know, Tony touched on the level of cooperation that goes on with law enforcement in the state. And, you know, I've been, I was U.S. Attorney Vermont, I was U.S. Attorney and a number of, you know, I worked in a number of offices around the country and that doesn't happen by accident. It takes a lot of work on behalf of chiefs and sheriffs and federal law enforcement, state law enforcement to make sure we're leveraging our resources as best we can. Now, on the syringe issue, we give out about a million syringes a year in the state. So, I think the last numbers I saw in for 2015, which I don't have a reason to believe has changed, were a little shy of a million needles, needle syringes we gave out each year. And the idea of having the boxes are to collect them. I'm sure we have a good way to collect all of those, all of those back. Well, I know, I did green update when I was in the Department of Transportation, about out in 89 and we all had this box of to keep hazardous material. I was, I was blown away by what we were picking up. And the minute you looked like you saw something, all these people came swooping in to tell you not to touch it and put it in the box right on 89. Just right out the window. It's like great. So, I heard you talk at an event we read about your concern about heroin and marijuana for safe driving and driving impaired. Could you talk a little bit about that? Because marijuana takes effect July 1st. Correct. So, marijuana will be legalized in Vermont on July 1st. I think if you, if the states that have already have it legalized and mostly I think the best evidence and what the best data is coming out of Colorado and Washington state that if Vermont follows it, follows that pattern that we can expect a higher rate of fatalities on our highways once, once marijuana is legalized. And that was sort of one of the, one of the reasons we were pushing for the, the oral fluid testing to try to have a better mechanism for detecting and prosecuting those that are so irresponsible that they, you know, they get high and get out, get out on the roadways. So, that was one of the main reasons we were arguing for that. I think Governor Scott has made clear that he's not going to consider any, any further marijuana legislation unless we address this roadway safety. Well, sadly, something's going to have to happen for the Senate to say, gee, maybe, maybe we were wrong. And that's going to require a few, sadly, a few accidents out there. Well, I mean if they, they are, they are pushing for the full tax and regulate. And the governor's made clear that that's, you know, that addressing this roadway safety is, is a prerequisite to, before he's going to consider that. Because you need a test, because I was thinking a couple of things. The DREs take you through quite a process and it could last more than an hour or so, whether in the barracks or out on the road. And I can just see people being really excited about that. So, you need something that's fairly quick. You tell the person, you know, you're under the influence, here's your ticket, see you, or, you know, they can't drive home. There's also another challenge of the DREs, and I've had this conversation with Lieutenant Flanagan from the, from Audit State Police. For the smaller agencies, like, you know, we are in Washington County, we have, we definitely have a need for more DREs, because there's just not enough to go around. Right. At the same time, the, the investment in the training, for example, for Montpelier to, to train a DRE, but it's kind of like having a canine too. Because once we have that, that officer trained up, I mean, and as you just, you just mentioned, they could be, you know, out of the area for some time if they're assisting another, another agency. Then you have to wait on top of everything. Yeah. So, so unless it's balanced, it can be a real, you know, real burden for smaller local agencies. Can any of your men go through the training and be qualified as a DRE, or will that take them away from what you've got to do on a, on a regular basis? Well, we're certainly considering it, you know, our officers, it's, it's so far we're going to have to. I mean, I know that I believe that's, that's inevitable. It's just, and I can't remember how long it takes to train them because they, they go out of state for a part of the training. Oh, this is expensive too, I'm sure. So, well, we've got trainings in the state, some of them are, some of them are out of state. For some reason, 45 is the number of this in my head, and I have no idea what, where that came from, but I think that's what we have. You know, I know we've had robust classes the last time, the last time we've done it, and I know we're getting better. And the idea is that, you know, you spread out, you, you get enough of these that it's, it gets to be less of a burden on the agencies that are doing it, because we've got so many of them. But they're critically important in these cases because they, right now, they're, they're kind of the only evidence we have that the person was under the influence of some, of some drug. And again, it's an expert opinion, which is subject to smart defense attorneys. I was going to say it's, he said, she said almost. Well, you know, but I think with all the training that, that would weigh on their side, I would hope, because what's the point? Well, yeah, I mean, there's the stuff before that too, without, you know, with, you know, with what's called AIRI training, which is an advanced recognition training that the officers, you know, that all of our officers are trying to get to make sure that all of our folks have that training, because a good, you still have to do a good investigation from that, from that stop or that, that interaction with the, the suspected impaired driver. So there's a lot that's already, you know, kind of building the stage, the foundation, if you will. So when that DRE does arrive, you know, he or she will can look at, what do you have so far for evidence, admissions? What have you seen from, what was the operation like? So all those factors, just like in any, any traditional alcohol-based DOI, they're still critical. And it's not like the DRE just comes in cold and just starts from scratch. You know, the police officers, the troopers, the sheriffs still have to do a really good, solid job on learning as much as they can about why they believe this individual is impaired. So at what point can you help these people? I mean, if they are addicted, at what point can you hopefully interject and give them some suggestions or bring them somewhere where they can get help? Because that's the key. They've got to get the help. And if they refuse it, they'll be right back on the road and doing their thing. So what do you do? They have to be in custody for you to get them that help or can you encourage them on the road or something? No, it's kind of of dusting off the old DEA demand reduction model from the 90s. They realize how we, whether it's a large corporation like IBM, don't just terminate the employee because they have a cocaine addiction. You've invested tens of thousands of dollars in that person. Whereas the person at the time may have, from another company, may have alcoholism. Okay, they might be treated but if it's illegal drugs and so forth. So it was a lot learned because the United States is still the number one country for demand to be high. You know, whatever the subsist. Yeah. That was just, I don't think that's statistics. And we have so much, you would think why? I don't think that statistic has changed from back now. We lead the world in the consumption of oxy-cotton and hydrocodone. Oh, I'm so sorry. By a very large, by a wide margin. Really? I think we, I want to say we consume maybe 80% of the because of our need to be high. Yeah, I mean it's a and we have the money to buy it. Probably some other countries that people don't have the it's a huge percentage of the worldwide prescription opioids that are consumed by in the United States. You're depressing me, Commissioner. So back to your question, though, is what can law enforcement do to help facilitate people in treatment? Several years ago, on 2015 or so, city manager Bill Frazier gave me a little article, something and it was on, hey, what do you think of this? And it was something that Chief Learner Campanella was doing in Gloucestershire, Massachusetts that was, you know, totally radically different. And that was instead of keeping arrest, you know, keep arresting the, you know, people addicts for possession. He said, this is just, this is crazy. He was able to start having the officers get them to treatment the department. And and it really kind of started taking off and what he basically started was what's called parry or the police addicted addiction recovery initiative. And so I looked at that and I'm like, huh. And at that time, you know, Eric Miller was the U.S. was our U.S. attorney and Governor and Governor Shumlin and everything we always saw on press conferences with, you know, and also with, with a T.J. Donovan and usually in Ginny County at the time, you know, was like treatment was six months out. And that was just drilled into the public's because all the big press conferences and with the Colonel, that's what we kept seeing. And so I assumed that was the same situation on the ground here in my failure in Walsh County. And then I met Deborah Hopkins from Central Montsubs since the beef services and our city council said, hey, we want to, we want an update from the chief. What's going on with this? You know, with heroin problem. And Deborah told me, so we have capacity here. And I go, what does that mean? Like how many people do you have in treatment right now? And you have capacity. Okay. So I talked to folks in the Vermont Drug Task Force and on the federal side saying, what do addicts, you know, and they were like, they don't even try to get home. You know, when they fed it, they said, because the word was there's no help out there. So looking at what Chief Campanel had started in Gloucester and talked to a colleague of mine from the FBI National Academy, he's the deputy chief from Scarborough, Maine, Dave Grober. And we're like, and he started, they started doing something very similar with their existing resources. So it wasn't the same model as Gloucester. And so we're like, huh, well, we have the lighthouse, which is a program. It's our public inebriate bed here in Washington County and it's run by Washington County Mental Health, another very strong partner for us here in law enforcement. So we just started saying, could we do something like that here? And so then we had the, we bought in the state's attorney and even had conversation. And when we had, when we launched a heroin forum, you know, that winter, you know, Eric Miller was there and we had Dr. Javad Mishkari, another one of our partners from the emergency department at Central Medical Center. And so we launched Project Safecatch and it was our version of the party model. And there was, you know, so we started off as kind of the pilot with Montpelier and then it kind of went to Berry City because I had regular communication with Tim Bombadier and the middle sex station commander at the time, Lieutenant Matt Nally. And eventually, it's now county wide. It was all the law enforcement signing on. And what it means is that if anybody flags down or initiates contact with law enforcement now in Washington County, it doesn't matter what color the cruiser is. Say, I need, I need help or goes to the lobby of police station. Okay. Well, if you have any narcotics or paraphernalia, there's, there's that drug box we were just talking about. And then we'll introduce them and we'll either, if it's during hours, we will bring them right to, to the hub up in Berlin. If it's after hours, that's where the lighthouse comes in. And that was the key. You know, what do you do of two o'clock in the morning when somebody is at, whatever at that point, you've got to be where they're at to help, you know, transition them into treatment. And if they're, you know, while they're willing, it's like, might not last, you might have to do this five times if they're willing. So the lighthouse is now a model where we could bring them and they've changed there with how they're set up in staff that they could help, you have that person at least supported until the hub opens up. Because my goal as a police chief was, a couple, it was two for one. You know, if somebody's, if somebody's desperate, you know, before they go grab a gun and go, hold up the local convenience store because they need to score, you know, their next bundle of heroin. You know, there's another alternative where they're not going to just be alone and we can get them, start getting them help. And it's, So is that part of the methadone? Because we have two drug treatment centers in Berlin. We have the methadone and then we have the one by the hospital. Well, there's the hub and spoke model. Yeah, that's the thing that that really has been a tremendous of a tension for that, haven't we? Yeah, that's been statewide. It's really a model the rest of the country is looking at. And the idea is you have these hub and spokes that are really allowing people to get treatment virtually on demand. I mean, the the wait times that Tony talked about earlier, they've basically virtually been eliminated in the state. So, you know, I think a person that's addicted to opioids, if they want treatment, they can get, this is all voluntary. It sounds like they have to come in and say, help me, because I mean, there's not all, not all of the opioid addicted people want to be in treatment. They like their addiction. They are dedicated to their addiction. But the people that want treatment, it's available. It's it's now available in Vermont. Another interesting piece of that too is, you know, there is that there was a little that that very, very limited amnesty, if you will. Again, if they self initiate, it's not our intent to charge them with possession. Right. You know, again, just get rid of it. And we want to get them to help. The other time we have used it successfully also is, there's been a, you know, whether we we've run this way for, you know, for burglary before. And they were a very heavy user. A couple, actually a couple of burglary related cases. They, they're still held accountable. Matter of fact, one of those individuals, you know, went through a successfully treatment court. So they're still, they were held accountable for their criminal actions. And then we still said, by the way, there's this, you need help. Can we help? How do we? And, you know, so, Even if they've been accused of a crime, because they, they still have to volunteer to get help for the addiction, or can you make them go? Yes, unless, unless it's court, you know, unless it's court. The court's going to order it as a condition of probation, you know, that they, they attend treatment. Probably if their mindset isn't to get treatment, it wouldn't work. You have to want to be be in treatment, to get treatment to be successful. It's like, bringing out, you can take a horse to water, but you can't make them before because I bet that's not an easy treatment to go through either, the, the withdrawal and all the stuff. Yeah, there's a physical illness to it. Yeah. If you're just doing a withdrawing called Turkey, there's a physical illness to it. Could you tell a little bit, because we have a few minutes left, but I wanted to talk about the prescription drugs, and I've heard you talk about this before, and I, and that you say that is the main problem. Yeah. To me, the evidence is overwhelming. I think the CDC has said the same thing. I think the President's Commission has said the same thing, that what got us in this problem was the overprescribing of opioids. And, you know, I think, I mean, the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies, it was just a 10-year or 15-year period, they were just completely overprescribed, where, you know, initially, you know, the 80% of the people that were, that were showing up as heroin addicted started on pain pills. That was the, and I initially did not believe that statistic, but the more I looked at it, the more I researched it, it really is, it is correct that, and so what happened was, they started to, you know, we did a better job on the diversion of legal opioids, that when you have these people that are addicted, then they're turning to the street, the street drug, heroin, now it's fentanyl, and I think in 10 years we're only going to see fentanyl, and that's sort of what, what got us into this problem. So, to me, the first step is bending that curve. Like, I'll give you an example. In 2015, Vermont issued 600 prescriptions, and 600,000 prescriptions, in the state for opioids. About half of the prescriptions issued in this state, in 2015 were for opioids. So think about that. That's blood pressure medicine, wow, good grief. You know, it's, it's antibiotics, whatever you need with the prescription. Right. Half of the ones written in 2015 were for opioids. Wow. That's 600,000, there's only 623,000 people in the state, so it's almost one for everybody. Yep. So I think, you know, with the, with the drug, the prescription monitoring system that we've put in place in Vermont, that that, and the education that doctors are getting, but I, that, they're getting it. We are seeing some, some bending of that curve. Because they have to write out a hard prescription. Every month or whenever the drugs, you have to go physically and get a hard copy prescription so that they should be looking at you then. And we're also, they have to put it into a database now in the state. So, you know, I do think we're starting to bend the curve on the number of prescriptions that are being issued. The last data I saw from the health department where it was encouraging. And so I look at it is, there's a supply and demand of this. And that's how we're going to conquer this thing. And a lot of the supply or the number of people that needed treatment were coming in because they were got addicted on pills. Right. Or they got them illegally or they were diverted or they were diverted pills. Do we have a problem with drugs coming into the state illegally? I mean, there must be, that must be a component too. Yeah, absolutely. What are we doing about that? Yeah, I don't want to think that the prescriptions, we've done a pretty good job on stopping the diversion of illegal, of prescription opioids. Right. What happens is that people that were addicted, they may have been using pills to feed their addiction. Once they can't get those, then they're going to the cheaper, the more available street drug, which is the fentanyl and the heroin, which is, our sourced cities are still Springfield, Massachusetts, Lawrence, Massachusetts. You just drive up. So those are sort of holy oak. Those are still sort of our New York City. Those are sort of our sourced city. So now we have a robust supply chain of illegal drugs that are coming into the state. And that's really where the drug task forces come in. And they've had the ability, both with DEA and the Vermont Drug Task Force, which has four different units in the four quadrants of the state that are doing the longer term drug investigations. And you have to understand, drug investigations take a long time because you're always starting sort of at the lowest level, user or distributor and you're trying to work your way up the chain. And those are just painstaking investigations. And the other thing you don't see is that oftentimes we'll develop information that is helpful to Springfield, Massachusetts or the state police in Massachusetts or New Hampshire. And then they are disrupting a supply chain in that state, which favorably affects us because they have taken out in Massachusetts or in New Hampshire, someone that has been bringing up drugs to our state. So it must be in everything, though trucks, airplane, I mean trains, planes and it's everywhere, right? That's why I think back to demand reduction or taking, getting people into treatment because unless they're treated, if they're an addict dealer, they're going to continue to deal. If they're an addict, turn burglar to robber, because sometimes they do escalate in the types of crimes that they'll commit, then we're not going to change that. I mean, but back to a positive note, all of this coordination with our medical partners now, and I now go to a meeting once a month now with a bunch of doctors and treatment providers. Again, the job has changed, but back to that and things like product safe catch and also most recently now is we're doing a follow-up. I have my officers, after a serious overdose that with the police and the ambulance responded to in a couple of days, after that reversal, just touch base because that person may or may not be receptive, but here's a card to the hub and do you need any help because in the moment when they come in. So each county must have a hub? Or a spoke. Or a spoke. Or a spoke, you know, where the hub is sort of the main thing and then the spoke's going out so that covers all of the community. And we have enough beds every night for these folks. Well, most of these are not residential treatment programs. These are out-treatment, medically assisted treatment programs to keep people functioning. And so it's not like that. Because I remember years ago, you and Tim Bommadier, Chief Bommadier, we were working with Mary Moulton when some of these folks would go to the hospitals and they'd wake up and cause all kinds of trouble and there wasn't any place to bring them. Right. And that was a big issue. Well, yeah, I mean, there's now the state, the psychiatric hospital now in Berlin since then, but the other thing if I want crime, you know, back to what my job, primary job is to, you know, to the Sins of Montpelier is how my best control in crime and the coordination of everything, safe catch, working closely with the Drug Task Force and our federal partners and local partners. Crime last year, our burglary was unprecedented. We were down 50 percent in burglary. Good. Our total crime was down 14 percent. You know, and I've had conversations with the Intelligence Center what's different, you know, and it's not just one thing. So we're hoping that that trend and that's why, so when I started off early, I said, you know, when a small community like Montpelier, sometimes, you know, it's easier for us to correct course because we can see what's working or what's not working more quickly than, you know, trying to get, you know, balance all different challenges at a state level or even beyond. Do you go over to the high schools or schools with your officers and talk to the kids in college? Because I have a feeling you must visit the high schools on occasion, too. Well, we have a full-time school resource officer, so he's definitely into everything that we're doing. And that's one of the, one of the things we're, we are actually evaluating the lieutenants and all the barracks are, or their outreach to the communities, including schools. One thing I didn't want to get back to, that Tony said was the supply and demand. If you, you know, simple things for simple minds. I look at that, there's a supply side of this and we're on the supply side of this. We're trying to stop the supply. And but the ultimate solution to this and police officers get this, is the demand. Right. So you have, if you can stop the people and on the demand side of that is treatment. So you're trying to get people to stop using, so it reduces the demand there. Right. We're trying to reduce the number of prescription opioids that get people addicted in the first place and try to reduce the demand. So if we could pinch that, the number of people coming in that need treatment, ultimately that will, that will be the solution. And, you know, the doctors are smart people. They get it. And they've been, you know, they are working hard, I think, with everyone to try to reduce the number of prescriptions that are being issued for, four of us. It'll be much more careful that people don't get addicted based on the fact that they're getting 30 or 60 day supply of opioids when it doesn't take that long to get addicted to them. I was going to say, you never know personally whether you're the one who's going to get addicted in a couple of days or a couple of weeks, right? I mean, everybody's sort of different. Right. Plus you always heard those stories too, you know, when you go around showing a movie called The Opiate Effect and we had a presenter. People out in the public would always, the adults would talk about, hey, I had this procedure and I got, you know, X number of pills. And I know from my own, you know, rebuilt knee. It's like nobody ever, you know, then how was the knee surgery? No one asked you, how was the pain management? Did you have enough? Right. Because you couldn't give anything. And that's something that's really starting to change. And I give the medical community a lot of credit for acknowledging that. Sometimes there's nothing wrong with IV protein. I mean, just, you know. The one that blew me away were the number of dentists that were giving it out for wisdom teeth. Oh, really? That was the one that kind of blew me away. Oh, no use. We had an opiate summit here in Montpelier a couple of years ago and I can't remember the doctor's name from Fletcher Allen, emergency department. But he said basically this, you know, outside of the United States, again, back to how we doctors are evaluated in medical facilities, that when you break your leg, it hurts. It's supposed to hurt. And I just, that quote really, really stays with me. Well, that's why I went back to that zero to 10. You're not supposed to be at zero. You just had major surgery. Give me a break. Yeah. You know, it's not going to last forever. But manage it. Yeah, but you don't have to, intestines have to be zero. Right. You know, Chief, you mentioned before about the drug treatment courts. We have them all over the state, I'm assuming. Do they really help? And I don't have a lot of experience at the state level. I do it at the federal level. And, you know, they can be extremely effective. And I've always, I've always thought that they're, they are effective. You know, and it really lies on the judge that is heading up the drug court. And the effectiveness of those, in my experience, and again, this is at the federal level, was if you had a, had a judge really committed to it, they could be really, really beneficial. And they assign treatment, or they would say to you, go to such and such a place to get treated, or what is their, what is their scope of, there's a lot of control. Yeah, I'm not even. I'm not that familiar with the state program. The federal program was, they were generally involved with people that were coming out of prison. Oh, okay. And so they were, you know, you would be able to, you know, they, and a lot of these people would be on supervised release, which is sort of like parole in the federal system. Well, we have that here in Barri, and I bet you have it here too, where groups of people support a prisoner coming out of, coming out of, Yeah. Coastal support. Yes, and they would watch them and help them and stuff. And I'm assuming that there must be some kind of support, peer support for, for addicts as well. Is there not? Yeah, I mean, that's, that's anybody that is involved in the recovery of addiction being connected and also breaking certain, you know, bonds that you had that would, Oh, yeah. You know, like certain groups of people, you know, to make sure that they have all the support that they need to, and that, you know, people care, but that somebody cares about them. Right. That they're accountable. You know, Hey, what did you do today? And that's kind of, and I know with our drug courts here, they'll let the local level and I don't have any statistical information, but they're really designed for the real serious addict, not just the, you know, the one-time person, but there's a lot of control to make sure that kind of like the COSA team. Yeah, that's a COSA. But there's a lot of accountability there. Yeah. So. Well, Commissioner, we were going to have Lieutenant Teresa Randall, who's the head of the Vermont Drug Task Force, join us, but she was called away. She got called away on the business. But what is that about? That's under your purview about the drug task forces. Yeah. So the Vermont Drug Task Forces have been in, boy, they've been in, they've been working in the state now for a long time, back when I was a line assisting U.S. Attorney, when I worked for a living. So they were, they're really, the state police does that really well. Senator Leahy's been a tremendous supporter of the, of the Vermont Drug Task Forces. He's been good for Vermont. We ought to give him a nice yes. And we do try to get in, you know, try to target the higher level distributors within an area. We've had, you know, some great success. Sometimes you see about the drug sweeps. We did a big one up in Newport last year, but even in Barry in Rutland, so they work in the four quadrants of the state. And what they're really trying to do is work with the local, the local law enforcement, federal law enforcement to identify the highest level traffickers in the state. Right. But as I said, those investigations can be very, very painstaking and they can take a long time. So you're obviously trying to work your way up the supply chain to get the, you know, find out who the person in Vermont is that really has the distribution network. Who is your out-of-state source of supply? And maybe that's when the feds, you know, the federal authorities would get interested. And you're really trying to take out that whole supply chain in a large-scale investigation. So what's next for the council and for law enforcement here locally? I mean, just keep doing more of the same or? I, you know, I think we're fortunate in Vermont because I think on the law enforcement and Tony Kirkmore, I think we do it pretty well. We have good success. You just don't have enough of us, though. Yeah, we have a good success in our investigations. I do think, I used to like to say when I was your attorney, I mean, Vermont's small enough that, you know, when you put together a pretty good case or a large case, you're really making a dent in things. Right. Versus if you're in a big city, you're just like, you know, you really, how much difference are you making? Right. So, but, you know, what I, I'm sorry. You can see it here, right? I mean, you can see it. You can see it. And the one thing I like to say is, you know, the law enforcement does get it. This is about demand reduction. Again, I go back to my Ebola analogy. If we had, you know, an Ebola breakout and we had, we had 100, you know, we had a bunch of people that had Ebola, we'd be treating them. Right. You had a lot of staff. Yeah, but we'd be damn sure we were trying to figure out stopping if people are getting infected. Right. That would be the other end of this. And so I'd look at that as like, you know, stopping people from getting addicted to this in the first place is really, really critical. Well, is there anything else we just have about a minute left that we haven't covered that you'd like to cover, Commissioner? Or Chief? No, Chief does. I think you guys have done a great job. And I think Jolinda was very, when she's talking about it, I think she's energized, the governor's energized that we'll get this done somehow. Yeah. The one thing I might say if I've got a minute is, you know, we've been piloting a program up in the St. Albans Barrack where we've actually embedded sort of a mental health social worker with the troopers up there. Oh, I read about that. So that's a good idea. I mean, the lieutenant that's up there right now, he's about an 18-year veteran of the state police. He runs the barracks. I mean, his statement to me when I was asking about it was he goes, this is the most successful thing that I have seen in my 18 years as a police officer. So we were trying to expand that to try to get them in all of the barracks, but that would be sort of an embedded person that can work with addicted individuals, mental health, because there's often a lot of overlap between addiction and mental health and try to get them into the treatment program that works best for them. So that's been usually successful. You've done a little bit of that in team two. We had a show about that where you work with mental health people when you go on the scene with somebody. But resources, in a perfect world, we would do exactly what you're doing up in St. Albans and in other jurisdictions. There's just so few and far between where we do have social embedded social workers. Because I bet they would let you look at things a little differently because they could step back and give you a different insight that perhaps you would see with that law enforcement focus. Right, because I mean mental illness is the whole thing with team two. I don't get a tough topic, but somebody's in crisis. Law enforcement should only be there for the safety part of it. Really, it's about getting that person to the right level of care when they need it and we're not the clinicians. Yeah. You have both been doing a fabulous job. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you for having us. It's been a great being here. Thank you very much. Thank you for tuning in. As Jolinda said, this is one of a series of eight shows on educating you on the situation here in Vermont on the opioid crisis. So hope you've learned some things and stay tuned for the other shows.