COLUMBUS (WCMH)– The Franklin County Coroner’s office says we’re in the middle of an opiate crisis.

Overdose related deaths from drugs like heroin, keep increasing. That’s why coroner Dr. Anahi Ortiz is bringing together community leaders to make a plan to help stop the death toll from rising even more.

Today was the first, “Opiate Crisis Summit” held at the Columbus Police Training Academy.

Dr. Ortiz says collaboration is key in order to improve the addiction situation in Franklin County. The summit is bringing together law enforcement, healthcare providers, legislators, the justice system, advocates and more to address the issue.

Vanessa Perkins is a recovering addict who this morning, spoke in front of the people she used to run away from.

“There were so many times I hated using and couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop. I hated it,” she says.

Today, she is a little more than six years sober.

But, just a few years ago she felt worthless.

“I put too much dope in the needle and injected myself with it and somehow woke up and I was mad about waking up,” says Perkins.

She was trafficked in the Franklinton area,  and used for sex. She says CATCH (Changing Actions To Change Habits) court saved her life, getting her into treatment when she was arrested for solicitation in 2009.

“Instead of me being this stupid girl, which I always believed me to be just this stupid girl…this dumb, no good drug addict, prostitute, no good mom. They taught me that this is the disease of addiction,”  she says.

Now, she’s an advocate, passionate about educating the community of the realities of addiction. She even works at the courthouse as a legal administrative assistant, for the same prosecutors who put in her jail.

“To address the sickness instead of just locking them away, I think is huge,” she says.

Dr. Ortiz says in 2015 there were 310 opiate-related overdose deaths in Franklin County. That’s about 100 more deaths than in 2014.

In March of 2015 she began the “Drug Overdose Initiative.” Each month, several agencies and offices involved in addiction review the cases of people who have died from overdoses. She says they recognize that there are many gaps in the system and they are all collaborating together to work on the opiate crisis.

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