Attorney General holds roundtable with Carbon officials on heroin and opioid epidemic

Working together to fight the opioid and heroin epidemic is the top priority of the state attorney general’s office.

State Attorney General Josh Shapiro met with Carbon County officials Thursday morning in Lehighton for a roundtable discussion on the heroin and opioid outbreak.

“The drug trade, the drug dealers don’t follow the municipal boundaries,” Shapiro said. “They don’t care if they’re in Lehighton or Jim Thorpe or wherever, they just, they sell this poison in our communities.”

Shapiro said they shut down two heroin pipelines that actually started in New York City, went through northeastern Pennsylvania into southwestern Pennsylvania, and ended up in Altoona and Johnstown, and dumped a combined million-and-a-half bags of heroin into Pennsylvania, all from New York City.

On Thursday, Shapiro announced a new round of arrests in a major drug ring that sold $1 million in heroin and crack cocaine in Wilkes-Barre and Luzerne County over the past year.

The Office of Attorney General and Luzerne County District Attorney’s Office charged 36 people with drug dealing in the second phase of a joint investigation called “Operation Outfoxed,” identifying Brian “Fox” Francis, 35, as the main dealer supplying heroin and crack cocaine.

“So they’re going wherever they can,” he said. “That’s why we’ve stepped up our efforts to work with neighboring attorneys general, with the feds, with others.”

Shapiro added, “But, it is really important that we can’t look at this just as individual counties or boroughs.

“This is a statewide problem; that’s why we all got to work together, why these task forces are critically important,” he said. “We’ve got to not only provide more resources at the state level for treatment, but we’ve got to get the feds to change this 16-bed limit.”

Shapiro said it’s called the Institutions for Mental Diseases exclusion.

“Right now, you have facilities here in northeastern Pennsylvania that could be providing treatment, but because of this 16-bed limit, Medicaid can’t pay for it, the counties and the state don’t have the resources to pay for it, and these people go without access to treatment,” he said. “That would go a long way toward both reducing our prison population and making a real difference in people’s lives.”

Shapiro said the focus needs to be on the treatment aspect of this in law enforcement and in the drug and alcohol program in the county.

A brief question-and-answer session followed.

State Rep. Doyle Heffley said it was nice to have so many people on hand to discuss the opioid and heroin epidemic, and that it’s great to have the support of the attorney general’s office.

State Sen. John Yudichak added that in the midst of this national epidemic, he appreciated that the attorney general took the time to stop in Carbon County, and that working together to fight the opioid and heroin epidemic is the number one priority of the attorney general’s office.

Shapiro was also scheduled to meet with Monroe, Pike and Wayne county officials throughout the day Thursday.

Since taking office in January, Shapiro’s office has:

• Arrested more than three drug dealers a day on average.

• Partnered with law enforcement to destroy more than 33 tons of drugs.

• Distributed 300,000 drug disposal pouches in 17 counties in Pennsylvania.

• Worked with the insurance industry to expand access to drug treatment.

• Helped lead a national investigation by 41 attorneys general of the pharmaceutical industry for their role in fueling the opioid crisis in the country.