The typical heroin user in Fishers is a 29-year-old white male, according to Fishers Assistant Police Chief Mitch Thompson.  He briefed city council members on heroin and the drug scene in Fishers during a May 16th city council work session.

Local police officers normally encounter heroin along Interstate 69.  “If we didn’t have I-69, we would have very little contact with heroin at all,” Thompson told the council.

He described heroin is the most addictive of drugs, with one dose typically resulting in addiction.

Thompson provided the latest data from the department’s annual narcotics assessment. In 2015, there were 3 overdose deaths in Fishers….2 due to heroin and one due to a combination of heroin and cocaine.  He provided another statistic to provide context…during the period of 2010-2015, Fishers experienced 45 suicides “by other means.”

Marijuana is the most encountered drug by Fishers Police, Thompson said, although his officers are beginning to see a decrease in that drug.  Next most encountered drug locally is heroin, followed by prescription opiates.

The numbers police have from Hamilton and Marion County addiction treatment centers from 2013 to 2015 show alcohol addiction as number 1, followed by marijuana, with opiate addiction (heroin is included in that mix) coming in third.  In 2013-2014, those treatment centers show a 98% increase in opiate addiction treatments….2014-2015, there was a 161% increase on top of that.  Thompson said Fishers Police are not seeing that kind of increase in their contacts.

Fishers Police officers are now being trained in using Narcan, the antidote drug for heroin overdose.  That program should be implemented within 30 days, according to Thompson.

City Councilman Brad DeReamer said he had asked that the heroin issue be added to the work session agenda.  He talked to a group of recovering heroin addicts and asked them what government can best do to help.  According to DeReamer, they cited the treatment center, their halfway house and the Hamilton County Drug Court.

“Jail doesn’t do anything,” said DeReamer.

Mayor Scott Fadness told council members he is concerned about addictive behavior. Heroin is the drug now, and it could be something else next year.  The core of the problem, the mayor says, is the addictive behavior.

Fadness says whatever the city does, it will be “substantive” and “systemic.”

“We do everything based on the numbers, based on what we’re seeing.” said Fadness.  “Anything we’re going to do, we’re going to make it of substance.”