Bartholomew County has an immediate need for a drug treatment facility, if it wants to stem the ongoing heroin epidemic.

Dr. Kendall Stewart, chief medical officer for the Southern Ohio Medical Center, was the featured speaker at the community kickoff event Wednesday for Bartholomew County’s new anti-opiate drug initiative.

He stresses that the situation is not hopeless, but he said that addicts need to have treatment options available.

And those will only be effective when the drug addict is ready to be treated.

Bartholomew County officials kicked off their efforts to stem the heroin and opiate epidemic with an event that drew a huge amount of community support.

The kickoff event at The Commons was attended by hundreds of people and introduced the new Alliance for Substance Abuse Progress in Bartholomew County, or ASAP in BC, initiative.