In its first six months, the Monroe County Heroin Task Force created by Sheriff Todd Baxter has made some headway in its fight against opioid drug abuse in the Rochester area.
But despite those efforts, there were 566 overdoses in Monroe County in the first six months of the year, and 85 of them were fatal. That’s a 16 percent increase in deaths over 2017.
Sheriff Baxter says there have been 50 drug raids that have kept more than 1200 grams of heroin and fentanyl from the streets. The task force also seized more than 700 grams of cocaine and crack, and 21 guns.
Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley says the Monroe County Crime Lab’s backlog of toxicology reports has been cleared, speeding up drug prosecutions. And Doorley says her office has been prosecuting dealers on homicide charges if their drugs cause overdose deaths.