New strategy in the war on heroin

New research shows teens are getting their hands on heroin younger than ever before. And what’s happening right now in Wayne County, Indiana, has experts there changing how they fight the heroin epidemic.

News Center 7 rode along undercover with the Wayne County Drug Task Force. This group of Richmond Police officers and Wayne County deputies is on the front lines every day fighting the heroin epidemic in their community.

“If we haven’t lost the battle, we’re very close to losing it,” said Richmond Police Sergeant, Jamie Mastriano, who leads the task force. "It's kind of like a tsunami that has come ashore with this heroin epidemic and has yet to recede.”

While we were on the streets of Richmond for our ride along, officers spotted a car leaving a known drug house. When police caught up with the car, they found heroin in the pocket of the woman who was riding as a passenger.

"You're going to be placed under arrest, OK? For possession of heroin,” Sgt. Mastriano tells the woman. “Go ahead and put your hands behind your back for me.”

As a uniformed Richmond officer puts the woman in handcuffs, Mastriano tells us she just bought heroin at the home they were watching. Then, the woman is put in the back of a Richmond Police cruiser.

"We're getting to the point now where we can't just let people walk for possession,” Mastriano said.

As the woman is taken to jail, another undercover officer with the task force performs a field test of the drug: it comes back positive for heroin. This gives officers enough evidence to pursue felony charges.

Wayne County leads Indiana’s 92 counties in the number of heroin overdoses. 16 people have died so far this year from a heroin overdose.

Over the last decade, on a national level, heroin use has doubled for 18 to 25-year-olds.

The first time Joshua Maiden used heroin, he was in high school. "I was 16," said the Richmond man. Maiden is currently on parole after he was released from prison in September. He served four years and eleven months behind bars after he was convicted of dealing heroin in Richmond in 2011.

We asked Maiden where he would be, had he not gone to prison. "Dead. I'd be dead," Maiden said. "I would have overdosed." [WATCH: Interview with Maiden who warns of heroin: 'It'll ruin your life. It's the devil' »]

That's partly why the Wayne County Drug Task Force is changing the way they educate kids about the heroin epidemic... on this new front in the war on this drug, your child's classroom. We were with them as they launched a new program to a gym full of students at Northeastern Schools in Fountain City.

The gym was noisy as sixth graders up to high school students filed into the room. But, it quickly fell silent as officers roll in a casket and a deputy posing as an inmate in shackles to show the consequences of heroin abuse.

We asked Sgt. Mastriano how this is changing the approach of drug education in Wayne County: “I think it’s kind of more of a ‘shock and awe’, get into their face,” said Mastriano.

There's graphic pictures, videos and talk from experts and families of addicts.

Traci Upchurch said her son was addicted to heroin. Her testimony is a part of the new program. "If my son hadn't been arrested we probably would have been looking at him in the casket eventually," the Richmond woman tells the students.

She tells the kids what it’s like to have a son in prison. He pulled off burglaries to bankroll his heroin addiction.

"It’s horrible,” Upchurch said. “The empty chair at the table when everyone else is there is really difficult. It just puts a hole in your heart."

This group knows this program won't be a quick fix to the heroin epidemic in their community, but they are in this fight for the long-haul.

"I’m hoping that in the next three to four, maybe even five years there's a difference and a mind-shift in our community,” said Mastriano.