GBI to target drug dealers in fight against state's heroin problem

There's a new tactic to fight Georgia's growing heroin problem. It focuses on every overdose death and following the drug trail.

Channel 2's Investigative Reporter Mark Winne spoke to the officials behind the task force who hope their plan will be a model across the state.

Amy Bevers saw her brother, Adam Hicks, deteriorate to drugs. She said Hicks used to be a farmer with four chicken houses, but he lost the farm. He was also a tire store owner and a tournament bass fisherman, but he lost his store and the boat to drugs.

Bevers said after eight years of an addiction that began with pain pills he got by prescription and was fueled by his fear of agonizing withdrawals, he lost his life.

“We're hunting the people that supplied Adam with the opioids that eventually led to his death,” said GBI agent Mitchell Posey.

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Posey said the multiagency Appalachian Regional Drug Enforcement Office he leads has launched an investigation into who supplied the oxycodone, Xanax and fentanyl that killed Hicks.

Moreover, Posey said as his task force fights to get illegal pills out of the communities they serve, investigators are building a blueprint for investigating who is behind every overdose death in their jurisdiction, a strategy to share with other drug offices across Georgia.

“We're gonna hold them criminally responsible,” Posey said.

Bevers says she knows the insidious power of pill addiction from another perspective. Painkillers prescribed after a four-wheeler wreck fueled her own nightmare, which took her from soccer mom to user.

“I was PTO president and receiving my third DUI in four months,” Bevers said.

She’s been in recovery five years.

If you have information about those responsible for Hicks’ death, you can call the Appalachian Drug Task Force at 706-348-7410.

Cox Media Group