Police are noticing the effects of Oklahoma’s addiction to prescription painkillers.
Many people addicted to the pills eventually turn to heroin. Tulsa Police Capt. Mark Wollmershauser said a full-blown painkiller addiction can mean as many as 100 hydrocodone a day at $3 apiece or 10 oxycontin at $30, so it's common for addicts to have a $300 a day habit.
"Or, I can score my 1 gram of heroin a day, be pretty much OK and only pay $100. So, I've cut my cost in a third," Wollmershauser told the Oklahoma Commission on Opioid Abuse.
Heroin is increasingly being laced with the powerful — and often deadly — painkiller fentanyl.
Another problem: When Tulsa Police ramped up efforts to get heroin off the streets a few years ago, they saw armed robberies of pharmacies jump from five to around 50 for the year. Addicts were behind almost all of them.
"By getting them addicted and giving them no way out of this, we turned them into armed robbers ... because they still crave that addiction," Wollmershauser said.
And gangs have discovered how lucrative pushing pills can be — and not just when it comes to money.
"Having a lot of crack cocaine and a gun gets you sent away for a really long time, but if I am dealing oxycodones, then, man, my time is considerably cut down," Wollmershauser said.
Wollmershauser said the biggest step the state could take in dealing with the opioid crisis is requiring all doctors use secure electronic prescribing.
