DeWine made the announcement at a Monday press conference.
“Frankly we have to fight this epidemic at the grassroots level, community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, village by village, township by township, city by city," he said. "Communities have to get mad and simply say enough is enough. New information our office has recently collected suggests that, at a minimum, 11 people die each week in Ohio because of heroin."
DeWine says the new heroin unit in his office will provide investigators, lawyers, drug abuse specialist and others who will be helpful to communities that are trying to fight the problem. He says the decision to create the specialized unit was made after his office discovered a 107 percent increase in heroin deaths among more than half of the state’s counties over the past 12 months.
