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Heroin epidemic crosses the Bay

Posted at 7:58 PM, Feb 25, 2016
and last updated 2016-02-25 20:02:54-05

The Chesapeake separates Queen Anne's County from Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County and Baltimore City but, as massive as the bay is, it can not stop the heroin epidemic from making its way to the Eastern Shore.

"You just never knew what was going to happen next," Kate Ryan said about the difficulties heroin has brought to her family. She spent 20 years as a Baltimore County police officer and the last two decades as a substance abuse counselor on the Eastern Shore, the last 10 with the Queen Anne's County health department.

She has personally been affected by the heroin problem on the Eastern Shore, three times, "Well for the last ten years, three of my four children have been in and out of rehab and in and out of using heroin."

Mickey is one of Kate's four children. He fell under the effects of heroin but, the the future is brighter for him now.

He's clean, but times weren't always so positive for Kate, "There were a couple times I felt like we weren't going to make it through this," she said. 

Wondering when her children would hit rock bottom and what that would mean, "Well the problem with waiting until your rock bottom with a heroin addict is, rock bottom might mean your meeting them at the morgue."

Fortunately that did not happen to her children. Mickey is clean and now he can reflect how heroin took over his life, "Started experimenting with prescription drugs and prescription drugs turned into heroin, pretty quickly," he said.

Mickey had to go to Baltimore to get his heroin. That's not the case for others here on the shore.

"They say they are getting it right in this town, it's all over the shore. I've seen it travel from over there to over here. I feel like it's gotten pretty readily available over here," he said.

When it does come to the shore, the first one to deal with it is Gary Hofmann, the Sheriff for Queen Anne's County.

"It doesn't know any socioeconomic boundaries." he said. "Heroin is one of those things where I've had the poorest of the poor and the wealthiest of the wealthy from my county in here."

In Queens Anne's the conversation should be how the crab population is going instead of people dying. On average the Health Department sees 600 people a year with alcohol and drug issues, about a third of them are for heroin and opiate problems.

Hofmann says it's not just heroin use that affect his county, it's what comes with heroin users.

"Heroin is fueling our thefts," he said. "It's fueling the domestic issues people are having. It's fueling all kinds of crime within the county.  It's increasing our crime numbers because people are becoming dependent on Heroin , they've lost their financial needs to support that"

Undercover narcotics officer for Queen Anne's county, we'll call him Wally, says he's locked up hundreds in these jail cells, "We see every thing from the kids to prominent business people."

In his almost decade of law enforcement in the county, he's seen the worst.

"Heroin has just really taken over, it's taken over almost every aspect of what we do," he said. "We can probably attribute most of our crime to drugs, especially heroin."

Sheriff Hofmann's focus is to inform the people of his county.

"Education and awareness," Hofmann said. "We are getting the message out there to the community members that this is a deadly addiction." 

He wants to start that message early in school and to reach every aspect of his community. Hofmann says parents have two choices: Ignore it and start planning a funeral or talk about it and look for a brighter future.

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