‘Dealing death’: Joco police to go after opiate sellers in overdose cases

Johnson County officials on Wednesday announced a new plan to fight the scourge of heroin and other opiate drugs.

More than 200 people each year require medical treatment in the county after overdosing on heroin and drugs like oxycontin and fentanyl, District Attorney Steve Howe said Wednesday.

“Almost every single day in Johnson County, somebody is either dying or close to dying because of these drugs,” Howe said.

Last year the county saw 24 opiate overdose deaths, and emergency responders treated 264 people for opiate overdoses, he said.

And those numbers don’t include people taken to hospitals by other means.

Under the county’s new initiative, Howe said each one of those overdose cases will now result in a criminal investigation.

He was joined at Wednesday’s press conference to announce the initiative by representatives from many Johnson County law enforcement agencies.

“Our goal is to identify and hold accountable the drug dealers who are causing these overdoses,” he said. “They’re dealing death.”

The initiative will also seek to help drug users find resources for addiction treatment.

Many people who become dependent on prescription medication turn to heroin because it is much cheaper, Howe said.

But because there can be such a wide discrepancy in purity levels from dose to dose, users can easily overdose, he said.

Under Kansas law, people who provide drugs that result in death can face the same penalty as someone convicted of second-degree murder.

Earlier this month, Howe’s office for the first time charged someone with supplying the drugs in an overdose death.

Michael Bickley, 24, is charged in connection with the February overdose death of a man in Overland Park.

This story was originally published October 26, 2016 at 1:51 PM with the headline "‘Dealing death’: Joco police to go after opiate sellers in overdose cases."