Police officers across West Virginia say their resources are also being consumed by efforts to fight against the tide of drug addiction and related crimes.
"It definitely strains your resources when you're in the middle of an epidemic," said Lt. Chad Napier, chief of investigative services at the Charleston Police Department.
Napier said that most of the Charleston department's investigations now involve drug use, whether or not they're officially classified as drug investigations. Officers regularly have to respond to drug overdoses.
"They're becoming experts, unfortunately, in an area maybe in the past they wouldn't have dealt with very often," Napier said.
They are seeing drug abusers turn to other crimes, such as burglary or larceny, to support their habit.
"Not only is it psychologically addictive, it's physically addictive," Napier said. "So you're going to get sick ... Your body's telling you that you're going to die. You need that drug."
Charleston Police Department officers were also recently all trained on how to administer naloxone, a drug that counteracts the effects of opioids like heroin and prescription painkillers.
"I don't think officers would have thought five years ago that they were going to be taking on some of the medics' role," Napier said.
Prescription drug abuse, in particular, has made drug investigations more difficult for police, said West Virginia State Police First Sgt. Mike Smith, who's been assigned to the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigations for 13 years.
With those investigations, Smith said, police had a new target other than users and dealers - unethical healthcare providers. When officers find a person with illegal drugs, they can make an arrest immediately - but with prescriptions drugs, they have to find out if the drugs are legally prescribed.
"Just because someone had a pill doesn't necessarily mean it's illegal," said Smith, who has supervised drug diversion investigations for three years and spent time as an undercover officer.
Smith agreed that police are seeing the effects of the opioid problem when they aren't even investigating drug crimes.
"You would start to see spin-off crimes," he said, including not just robbery, but violent crimes and child abuse. "They're not thinking rationally. Their number one focus becomes to get their next fix."
The problem is so pervasive, the entire force has had to get used to dealing with it. Traffic stops routinely turn into drug arrests," Smith said.
"They just became the dope cop that day," he said.
Investigating drug crimes can also mean for longer days, according to Smith.
"If you're working a drug case, you can't just shut it off at 4 in the evening," he said. "... We don't like letting that stuff go."
The problem also takes up a big chunk of the State Police budget. Smith mentioned wear and tear on vehicles, money spent by undercover officers to purchase the drugs, and the cost of drug testing at the crime lab.
"If you're going to combat the heroin epidemic, it's going to take a multifaceted approach," he said. "You're going to need prevention. You're going to need treatment, and you're going to need law enforcement. The biggest thing is you're going to need to have a budget."
The problem has even affected recruiting of new police officers, Smith said.
"Sometimes it makes it tough to find people who haven't dabbled with opiates in the past," he said.
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazette.com, 304-348-5163 or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.