Here & Now

New Milwaukee Drug Task Force Tackles Opioid, Heroin Crisis

Frederica Freyberg:

Now to Milwaukee, where in one 3-day period this month, the medical examiner saw 12 drug overdoses. The county projects Milwaukee could see more than 400 overdose deaths in 2017. Between 2005 and 2014, deaths due to heroin increased by 495%. Those are lots of numbers that represent the human toll that opioids, including a new and powerful sedative used for large animals call Carfentanil, is taking in Milwaukee. The city’s health commissioner is leading a new city-county task force on heroin, opioids and cocaine. Bevan Baker joins us now. Thanks very much for doing so.

Bevan Baker:

Thank for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

The numbers suggest an explosion of this problem in Milwaukee. How do you rank it in terms of public health issues in your city?

Bevan Baker:

Certainly the crisis is hot on our list at this time. We are seeing this explosion not only here in Wisconsin, but across the nation. So, this is indeed something that we’ve got to get our arms around and we need a public health approach to do it.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, as you say, this is happening nationwide. What is fueling this?

Bevan Baker:

Well we have to go back a little bit. We know that prescription drug practices many years ago–we’re paying a dividend for it in terms of how people become addicted to over-the-counter medication. Heroin is cheaper. And some of the control measures have pushed us to this point. We need everyone, including physicians, to wrap their arms around the issue.

Frederica Freyberg:

The president this week declared the feds are going to come down hard on the massive drug problem, pointing to the borders and presumably interdiction, is that reassuring to someone in your position?

Bevan Baker:

I want to see federal support at any level. And law enforcement is good to be working on this. But this is just not a law enforcement issue alone. This is truly a public health epidemic we need to curl back. So, having Washington push forward and look at our borders is important. But we need other types of intervention from Washington.

Frederica Freyberg:

So speaking of other types of intervention, though, how will a task force that you’re leading try to tackle this problem?

Bevan Baker:

I think we need to make certain everyone in our county and our city, and across our state, understands the true human toll here. This is indeed just like any other public health crisis. One that we need to go to the root causes and we need to be able to put resources where they need to be and look at prevention as our goal. I’m working with so many dedicated professionals on the task force. I believe we’re going to make some effort here. And we have great support from the state of Wisconsin. I’m proud to say that.

Frederica Freyberg:

You, a moment ago, said that you needed more from Washington, like what?

Bevan Baker:

Well, what we need is — Wisconsin recently was a recipient of about $7.6 million. We need more prevention dollars to come. We need them to loosen up some of the criteria in terms of billing where more helping professionals, mental health professionals, can actually get paid to do the work as it relates to counseling and intervention.

Frederica Freyberg:

Where do you start with prevention?

Bevan Baker:

I think we start upstream, way upstream. We need to make certain people respect the drugs in their medicine cabinet. We need to make certain that parents, guardians and others who have custody of children are talking to children about the concerns around medication management. And we need to make certain that medical schools and nursing schools and anyone that’s going to be involved in making certain that individuals can prescribe medications understand the power they have. We have to go way upstream.

Frederica Freyberg:

Aren’t medical professionals already doing that?

Bevan Baker:

Well, I think that they’re starting to do it. They are — here in Milwaukee, the Medical Society of Milwaukee County has made it one of their top priority issues. But still, there are people who go from provider to provider to get medications once they have an addiction. We’ve got to figure out a way to either do it through information technology, and through our the practices to make certain that we can help those individuals but not let them shop for over-the-counter prescriptions and then lead them to the road of heroin addiction.

Frederica Freyberg:

Very briefly, I understand you just had a task force meeting this morning and heard from members of the public. What did you hear?

Bevan Baker:

Well, those stories from the public at large are heart wrenching. And we’re always inviting that at the task force level. They have skin in the game and they have vested interest. We want to make certain as a task force that we’re inspired and we’re also directed by the public to make certain that Milwaukee city and county and the state of Wisconsin are safe for us all.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right, Bevan Baker, thanks very much.