A suburban Philadelphia County is taking on drug overdoses head on. Montgomery County officials plan to announce an Overdose Task Force to help combat growing heroin-use trends throughout the county.
The ultimate goal of the new task force will be to put together preventative strategies against drug and heroin overdoses in hopes of reducing overdose-related deaths in Montco.
County officials will unveil the new task force at noon Friday.
An increase in drug overdoses is a national trend that has made its way into local regions. The issue comes with unique differences from other drug use, making it especially difficult to address.
Other counties throughout the United States have implemented overdose task forces to combat their own local epidemics. Westmoreland County in Pennsylvania currently uses a task force to identify the roots of heroin overdoses in their area. Los Angeles has had an overdose task force since 2006 to establish unity between police, communities and medical responders.
