Todd Zimmerman is a realist.

The adjunct lecturer of history at Lehigh Carbon Community College knows solving the heroin epidemic plaguing rural communities, especially those in Carbon and Schuylkill counties, isn't possible.Through town hall meetings like one held Wednesday night at Jim Thorpe Area High School, however, he hopes to generate ideas that can lessen the problem and serve as a role model for other Pennsylvania counties to use in fighting the same battle.Zimmerman, in conjunction with Jim Thorpe's Students Against Destructive Decisions, put together a panel of more than 15 people in the law enforcement, medical and rehabilitation fields, along with a parent of a heroin addict who passed away earlier this year."Since the modern drug problem started with the American involvement in Vietnam, we've spent over $1 trillion fighting the war on drugs," Zimmerman said. "There are more drugs available today and we have a higher incarceration rate than ever before. We need a new strategy and this is what we have put this panel together to discuss."Personal experienceHeroin users typically start out addicted to something else, often painkillers.Palmerton's Cindy Kester knows the pain all too well.Her son Lee was a passenger in a car crash in 2002 when he was 21.A compression fracture of his upper spine left him with back pain months after the incident.Trips to multiple doctors and surgeons gave him no answers. Lee eventually found a physician in Bethlehem who would prescribe him pain medication."At that time he was taking over 10 oxycodone and methadone every day," Kester said. "That was in addition to his antidepressant and other medications."In 2008, the physician closed his practice and Lee was left to find another doctor. He did, although the doctor reduced his medications."He then found friends who would sell him pills," Kester said. "We knew he was turning to street drugs and suggested rehabilitation to him, but he wouldn't go."The law eventually caught up with him and he was arrested after pulling into a parking lot and falling asleep.Police found heroin pills in his wallet.Lee finally entered rehabilitation, but later violated his probation and spent three months in prison.He was released on Sept. 3."He was in the best condition we had seen him in a long time," Kester recalled.Though things looked to be turning around, just one week later she found Lee slumped over a chair."I did CPR and medical personnel shocked his system several times, but we knew he was gone," Kester said.The family is still waiting on results of a toxicology report.What came as a shock was the timing of Lee's death."He seemed to be on such a better path," Kester said. "Drugs and alcohol are often turned to as a release for underlying problems. We have to start addressing those underlying problems."Overcoming addictionRehabilitation often does its job, but it's when addicts return to their communities that the real test begins.Kurt Montz, supervisor of the Schuylkill County Drug Task Force, suggested people might have to relocate to avoid being around other users in their hometowns."You can't come back to Carbon or Schuylkill counties," Montz said. "People are still doing the same thing you're trying to get away from. You may last a month, but you'll slip and then you're done. You have to change your life."That isn't the case for everyone.Clean for three yearsKaralyn Dietrich of Summit Hill has been clean for three years.Her addiction started in high school."I wish someone had come up to me at that time and said is this really what you want your life to be; stealing, having your name in the paper, going in front of a judge?" she said.Though her life took a negative turn, Dietrich said she alone is to blame."It's not my parents' fault," she said. "Those were the choices I made for my life."Dietrich now speaks to high school students, most recently at Panther Valley, about how she overcame addiction.Addiction can happen to anyone.Just ask Marshall Bowen, emergency room nurse manager at St. Luke's Miners Campus - Coaldale.His sister went through the battle."Fortunately she married an addiction counselor so we got lucky," he said. "Too often we people get addicted after starting with pain medications because we think nothing bad can come of that."Help is availableCarolee Boyer, outpatient treatment supervisor for the Carbon, Monroe, Pike Drug and Alcohol Commission, said 56 percent of the clients who walked through the doors last year were addicted to opioids, including heroin. That is up from 36 percent in 2008.Still the stigma associated with heroin addiction prevents even more people from reaching out for help."The stigma needs to go away," said Dr. Gregory Dobash, of St. Luke's Miners Campus."We don't take diabetics and sit them down and shame them. There are treatments available."Heroin is also the drug of choice for the majority of patients at Hillside Detox and Inpatient Treatment in Stroudsburg."We had a 67-year-old female who had been in rehab 45 times," said Kelly Salloum, program manager. "Every time she was there she said she wanted help. She was constantly drawn back to heroin and that shows how powerful this drug is."Law enforcement does a balancing actPossessing heroin is illegal and local law enforcement officials have no choice but to make sure addicts are held accountable for their actions.Ultimately, however, no amount of jail time is going to cure someone of a chronic relapse disease."We're always looking for ways to fashion sentences that are appropriate for an individual," Carbon County District Attorney Jean Engler said. "We are attempting to set up a re-entry program trying to assist those who are incarcerated and get them back into society without relapsing. "Criminal cases involving some type of drug use are on the rise, according to Carbon County Common Pleas Judge Joe Matika.Over 50 percent of all the criminal cases in 2014 involved drug possession or driving under the influence charges.But those aren't the only cases involving drugs."A lot of our thefts are drug related," Matika said. "When someone goes and steals a TV from Walmart, they aren't going to hang it on their wall. They're going to sell it for drug money."Carbon County employs a special detective for drug investigations, Jeff Aster.He, like Zimmerman, knows the battle can never fully be won.A dent can be made, however, with properly funded rehabilitation centers and drug education programs in schools."Heroin prices have plunged," Aster said. "You can get it for $2 a bag at times. The market is saturated and dealers are cutting the heroin with dangerous substances. My personal feelings are that it starts in the home. I've arrested second- and third-generation family members. There is no way out for someone who has lived that lifestyle from the time they have been in a house."The next stepZimmerman said he plans to keep in touch with all panel members and hold a follow-up meeting in Schuylkill County."This isn't the end of the conversation, it's just the beginning," he added. "We need to keep this issue at the forefront so addicts, friends and family members know where they can turn."