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As the heroin problem in Vermont has affected more and more families, communities across the state are responding by increasing treatment options for those afflicted by addiction.  

The state police are trying to combat the problem from the other end: by stopping drug trafficking into Vermont. To aid that effort, a federal grant has awarded Vermont $1.4 million to pay for five new investigators to be assigned to the Vermont drug task force.

This story is part of , VPR's week-long look at the progress that’s been made in fighting opiate addiction in Vermont and the problems that remain. 

says so far efforts to fight the heroin epidemic are yielding good results, but those results are relative when put in the context of a much bigger social problem.

“We've been successful because we've really improved our partnerships with the federal agencies, the U.S. attorney's office and the local agencies, and so now we're a much more efficient heroin-investigating machine than we were ten years ago or even five years ago.�

More heroin in Vermont now, despite more drug busts

“But that having said that there's still more heroin here today than there was six months ago and I think there's going to be more here in six months from now than there is now,� says Merrigan, the commander of the Vermont State Police narcotics investigation unit.

Through his work, Merrigan has a broad understanding of � and sympathy for � the people who get caught up in the devastating effects of dangerous drugs like heroin and other opiates.

“At the end of the day you're limited by the amount of resources you have to work on [the problem] and right now we are outnumbered by the number of people that want to sell heroin in Vermont� by quite a significant margin.�

Merrigan says part of the challenge is how amorphous and independent some of the drug rings have become:

“There isn't a unified structured group that we're dealing with ... In classic drug distribution from the 1990s, you would get [dealers] that would come up to Vermont but they would come up in a group, and they would have their own hierarchy.�

Harder to pinpoint drug dealers

Merrigan says that was pretty easy to investigate because once police identified one dealer, they could track down all the others through drug deals with that person: “You’d get them all wrapped up into a nice neat conspiracy.�

Merrigan says now many dealers are not afraid of jail time, and are well-trained in drug trafficking.         

He says part of what makes dealers so hard to stop is “the infrastructure that Vermont provides your average drug dealer from out of state that wants to come here with quantity.�

Merrgian says Vermont is a “consumer state, and we don't produce heroin, we got to get it from someplace else ... It doesn't come here in bulk. �

He describes how many dealers connect with Vermont addicts who then give them a place to stay and rides around town. They are able to operate under the radar much more easily with the help of locals.

More dangerous drugs   

Merrigan says the heroin in Vermont today is 300 percent more powerful than the heroin of 1985. “So there's a ton of it, it's better, and there’s a huge demand for it," he says.

He added that even high school students can easily get access to heroin.

Merrigan says police will continue to fight trafficking and try to stop heroin from spreading around the state.

“We can do things better, but we're not really equipped to solve the social problem that's heroin addiction.�

“We’re equipped to combat the traffickers, in certain circumstances help the addict and the user either get treatment or get out of trouble and get themselves in a position where they're going to treatment instead of jail.�

He says treatment is a big component right now, but the real need is to “stop people from wanting to try it. And I don't know how you do that. I'm not sure how we do that.�