Police Chief: City's Awareness of Prescription Pill Abuse is Growing

Opiate abuse is popping up in North Canton. Police officers see it when they make arrests for break-ins. They see it when pills come up missing from nursing homes. It's here.

But they say there's a bright spot: The city's awareness of prescription pill abuse — namely the painkillers like Oxycodone and Vicodin, which lead to heroin use — is growing.

Chief Stephan Wilder said that's apparent when you look at the amount of drugs police collected during the national Drug Take-Back Days. He said the department collected 74 pounds of prescription medication in October of 2011 and 145 pounds during the most recent drug take-back day in April of this year.

Wilder shared that information as well as his insight into North Canton drug crimes when he spoke at an opiate town hall meeting at  Thursday night.

The Mental Health and Recovery Services Board (MHRSB) of Stark County and Quest Recovery and Prevention Services hosted the meeting as the finale in a county-wide series.

Wilder said opiates are turning up in traffic stops and other arrests.

"What we're also seeing in our arrests: possession of drug paraphernalia — whether it's a pipe or a crack pipe, whatever they're using to ingest their drug of choice," Wilder said, adding alcohol and marijuana also are involved in a great number of arrests.

He said "bath salts" have not made their way to North Canton yet. In October 2011, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration banned three chemicals found in products marketed as "" that, when ingested, produce a high users liken to cocaine or methamphetamine.

"What we're seeing, too, in our car break-ins and burglaries, people are still going in for cash, jewelry and cleaning out the medicine cabinet," Wilder said.

And when it comes to North Canton schools, any problems with opiates remain unseen for the most part.

"We can only react to what the information is coming to us," he said. "But I believe we do have a good relationship with the schools and they do report when a youth has brought marijuana or drug paraphernalia into the school. They're not hiding it. I think they're transparent with us."

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