Dr. David Rottinghaus sets the right tone about Butler County’s willingness to confront its growing problem with heroin and opioid addiction. “There’s a lot of people who will tell you how it got started,” says Rottinghaus, the medical director of Butler Health System’s emergency department. “But the bottom line is, we have a major problem on our hands, and it’s not about a national fix. I love that Butler is coming together as a community and approaching this in a very raw and real way.”

Rottinghaus was talking about a series of community forums focused on the opioid crisis, which has claimed more than 50 lives so far this year in Butler County. Rottinghaus will be one of the discussion leaders at the next forum, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday in the auditorium of Mars High School. It will be the second such forum. Please attend.

The heroin crisis has startled us with its complexity and stubbornness. No single remedy has proved effective — not tougher criminal penalties, rehabilitation, physical and psychological therapy, not even the antidote Naloxone, although all of these things play a role in the battle against this scourge.

Clearly, it will require an ongoing — and evolving — “all-in” strategy to defeat this demon in our midst.

Implicit to an all-in approach is an attitude of humility. Is it really stigmatizing when the stigma touches all of us? Butler County Commissioners Chairwoman Leslie Osche recently put it succinctly: “I think the public just has to be continually reminded of how fragile we all are, and to understand that there is hope. It takes a lot of education to break down the walls and help people understand how anybody can get there, how anybody can find themselves in those shoes.”

We must refrain from blaming each other. We must resist the impulse to beat each other up.

That said, we do have a common enemy, and that’s the drug — more specifically, the drug dealer.

We watch with interest as another Pennsylvania county has taken its fight against drug dealers to a new level. Franklin County’s district attorney, Matthew Fogel, says he’ll convene a grand jury next year to combat heroin trafficking. The new grand jury will be convened for 18 months to hear witness testimony specifically about alleged illegal drug dealing and trafficking.

The grand jury format offers several advantages:

- It protects witnesses with a guarantee of secret testimony.

- It protects the integrity of ongoing criminal investigations so that targeted individuals are not aware of the grand jury’s involvement.

- It has the power to force reluctant witnesses to testify.

- It can require people and businesses to produce material without a search warrant.

Fogel says the objective is clear and simple: Get rid of the dealers, and you get rid of the drugs.

Anyone on a diet knows the wisdom of keeping ice cream and candy bars out of the house. A recovering alcoholic knows not to go into a bar. Likewise, if we’re going to defeat heroin, let’s drive the drugs — and the drug peddlers — out of town.

A heroin grand jury should be considered in Butler County as part of an all-in anti-opiates strategy.

Drastic times call for drastic measures. With fifty-plus overdose deaths so far this year, these are drastic times.