M
Public Safety
Minnesota task force aims to alleviate opioid crisis
By LAUREN CAGGIANO | The Municipal
The Duluth, Minn., Police Department and partners are coming at an existing problem with a new solution.
Lake Superior Drug and Violent Crime Task Force Commander Jeff Kazel TOP PHOTO: Duluth, Minn., Police Department and partners have formed the Lake Superior Drug and Violent Crime Task Force to remove illegal firearms and dangerous substances for their communities. Poverty, lack of economic opportunity and access to opioids through the hospital system both play a part in the area’s opioid crisis. (Shutterstock.com) 42 THE MUNICIPAL | SEPTEMBER 2021
Lake Superior Drug and Violent Crime Task Force is a multijurisdictional task force composed of multiple members from local and national agencies and has implemented practices to take an illegal firearm and keep dangerous substances off the streets. Task force Commander Jeff Kazel details the size and scope of the problem. “I started this job as a commander in 2014,” he said. “I knew we knew we had a problem, but we never really had any hard evidence that showed its severity.” That all changed in 2015, he said, when the medical department of health came out with their statistics for overdose deaths for all the
counties the task force members serve. He started pouring over the data and learned St. Louis County had the highest overdose rate per capita in the state. For context, this was higher than Hennepin County and other larger population centers. Why St. Louis County and why now? Kazel said it’s a perfect storm of factors. Poverty, lack of economic opportunity and access to opioids through the hospital system both play a part. Despite this grim picture, Kazel said the task force is making progress. Though the name of the initiative has changed since its inception about 20 years ago, it is getting
