♪ protection for police, bensalem wants suspected drunk drivers to be tested at the station. now the program unfolds. we'll tell you why and what will get it back. plus, a push to bring classical music to the ears of more people. a local conductor has a plan. good morning, i'm tracy davidson for nbc10 "@issue." snee begin a program in bensalem, in-house blood testing. they say they saw a big boost in

duch duchlt i arrests after they began drawing blood at the station instead of the hospital. with me is the director of public safety for beb snsalem police department. thank you for being here. tell me what the protocol was before you instituted it. >> about a year and a half ago we started doing that. prior to that bensalem doesn't have a hospital in our town, so we would have to take the suspect to a hospital and take the -- get the blood drawn there. that would take two officers. i do not send one officer to a hospital. it took two officers out of service for about an hour and a half. that's a long time. it took three hours of time that the officers aren't patrolling on the streets. and we had to go to another facility and it would pose a danger not only to the officers but also to the people in the hospital. as you know, in 2005 officer brian greg was shot and killed in st. mary's hospital, another

officer was wounded in that incident and an er tech was also shot. it's very dangerous bringing prisoners for what you think might be drunk driving where they have the possibility of getting away. we look at taking blood in-house. why not? >> it's better to have a blood test than a breathalyzer. that's always more powerful for prosecution. >> it is more powerful. there are a lot of challenges with the breath test and in the wave of our opium epidemic, we're finding, in fact, 34% of the blood we're getting back is testing positive for drugs and not alcohol. that's one out of three getting away under breathalyzer. the officer sees the common sway of the line, not putting your lights down, normal probable cause, they may not smell alcohol on the person and they have drugs on them. >> you start a program to do the blood test in the police station. you have an emt draw the blood. >> we converted a room in our holding area into a phlebotomy

lab where the chair you find in your doctor's office and all the medical equipment necessary to take blood. we have a local paramedic come and drought blood. >> talk about the results. you did it for a year? >> for a little over a year we saw 70% increase kreecrease in . officers consistent have the burden to take two officers off the street. what took two hours an hour and a half takes ten minutes. >> so two officers at the hospital and then waiting a long time for somebody to draw the blood, right? >> correct. they'd have to wait for a doctor or er tech to become available. you're putting the burden on the hospital, taking someone on drugs or hospital into a civilian environment, taking

time away from patrol for other citizens in your community so it had all kinds of ramifications. >> your program is working well in bensalem and you say other counties should do the same thing. >> i proposed it in the county and was accepted but we ran into a little problem. >> explain. >> state got wind of what we were doing. nothing illegal. the blood draw according to crimes code as long as it's a certified person taking the blood but we were using our paramedic. state code says it was out of what they call scope of practice. it's not what the paramedic was intend fod ed to do they got th license 37 they take blood and put ivs in, do the same as fleb mist.

but we met with some state representatives, and we asked the state, tell us what you want us to do. give me the rules and i'll follow them. they gave us a three-page letter back that put a little scare into some of the ems directors because it put the paramedic's license on the line. that's their bread and butter. they outlined three things that were silly, in my mind. and silly as far as the state reps believed, too. thanks to representatives they are about to introduce legislation, the brian greg act, which should be introduced very shortly within a couple days if not a week or so. that would make this a legal, permissible function of paramedics. if the local police department and local ems director got together and this is something they wanted to do, it wouldn't be mandated, but now make 2 legal for them -- will give them

the proper backing within the state to do it so paramedic's license isn't on the line here. i'm hoping it passes. there should be no nays. it saves lives, puts people in the hospital's risk reduced and more drunks and people driving under the influence off the streets. it's a win-win all the way around. >> efficiency and safety. tell us the story of officer greg for those that don't know. >> brian greg, police officer in newtown borough and arrested an individual for drunk driving and he took him to st. mary's hospital. he's from newtown borough. that individual was violent and got the other officer's gun away from him in the hospital, shot one officer, shot an er tech and while brian greg was on the

ground he shot him in the head and killed him. i believe he's on death row. i believe governor corbett at the time signed the execution warrant. don't know the status of it now. there's a moratorium but i would like to see him put to death. he killed a police officer in cold blood. he's a bad guy. but that didn't need to happen. at the time there was no other mechanism in place but there is now. the state ems department is putting a wrench in the works. why? i don't know because it's just ridiculous. we all should be working together for the common goal and we have your own departments within the government fighting, this is not what the people -- the taxpayers of the commonwealth want. they want us working together to solve problems. we figured out a way to solve a great problem. we've increased our numbers, put

officers -- made officers safe, put the suspect in a safer environment and civilians in the hospital. and the ems department said, that's nice but we don't care. >> while you wait for the bill to make its way through, what are the other things your department is doing to curb drunk driving, especially around the holiday season? >>. >> right now the countercounty has drunk driving details out there, officers get posted on new year's eve. we just had it out there for thanksgiving eve. er with trying to increase and make sure our officers are getting drunks and people under the influence not just alcohol, i think there's a lot more responsibility with people drink now. but with the opium addiction problem and heroin issue, 40% are coming back with pills. just because a doctor gave you a root canal with vicodin doesn't

mean you can get in a car and woop it up. >> last time you were here you talked about the hydro. you were fighting to make it legal. finding its way to the streets? >> we're not seeing it, which is good because of people like you and the media keeping it alive and telling everyone how dangerous it is. doctors and pharmacists realize it's a potential killer. we're not seeing it on the street so we'll keep it alive and make sure it doesn't make its way to the streets. but we're seeing vicodin and percocet and of course heroin. >> does that impact it as well, the cheapness of heroin, that it costs to little? >> we're finding out people are going straight to heroin because it's so much cheaper than the pills and easier accessible. heroin is off the trucks. we've seen a 34% increase in our

drug activity. we've had a 65% increase in overdoses in just the last year. 65% increases in overdoses. we have great state reps trying to help us and we have ems departments trying to save lives, and they're kick us in the pants. 65% increase in drug overdoses. we have to do something about this. >> when we come back, we'll discuss another unique program in bensalem. this is aimed at stopping prescription drug abuse. notifying doctors when the drugs they prescribe fall into the wrong hantdz. talk more about that coming up.

if you get stopped for impaired driving in bensalem township, you may be dealing with more than law enforcement. now police there are notifying your doctor. back with me is the public safety director for bensalem police. so, you guys are notifying the doctors when you find pills in a car. walk me through this. >> we've got a couple scenarios. if we find pills in your car, we arrest you for drug possession or selling drugs and you have a bottle of oxycontin, normally a 30-day supply. you got your prescription filled on the 13th -- >> you do the math. >> we do the math. if you got three pills left, you're either -- you're abusing them or selling them. we will send a certified letter to your doctor notifying him or her, hey, we stopped your patient on such and such date and they did not have the right amount of pills left. your patient is either abusing them or selling them.

it's up to you, doc. we're just letting you know what's going on. if the patient overdose, we respond to their house and overdosing on a prescription the doctor prescribed to them, we're sending a certified letter to the doctor telling the doctor the patient used them to commit overdose or attempt suicide. 90% to 95% of the doctors are calling me back, can't believe the letter they got and thank us for the information. >>. >> hor or why did you come up with this? >> a couple years ago we had a group called doctors together. we have about 30 doctors that came to the meeting, which wasn't too bad and we shared information with them on the o carrierringringconnect 50

>> she wanted to get a prescription filled. she called me demanding i rescind my letter. of course, i wouldn't do that. to me that was proof the doctors are taking it serious. you know, as we talked about on your show a while back, it's not just the police doing this. it's everybody working together to solve this horrific epidemic we have in this country. there's no way the police can handle this alone. it's the pharmacists or doctors,

everybody else out there. >> ultimately you're getting people help. >> all i care about is preventing tomorrow's crime. these people are stealing, breaking into cars, houses, committing robberies, stealing from their families. so they can get their next high. that's all they think about is their next high. i'll do whatever i can and i will bejd bend sta stick as far as i can bend it without it breaking and staying within the confines of the law and you'll use every tool in the tool box to get someone to stop taking pills. if i can get one on today, the 17th of december, to stop taking drugs, i've earned my pay. >> thank you for being here. >> thank you. ♪ next on nbc10 "@ issue," filling the seats. we'll tell you how orchestras are changing their tunes to reach out to a wider audience.

jinch

jinchts. much orchestras are cross the country have hit a sour note. they're building an audience and yet it's older and less diverse. a conductor is trying to turn that around. he believes one approach is to partner with local churches, among other ideas he has. with me is maestro, conductor of the wheeling symphony orchestra. studied at yale and juliard. thank you for being here. >> it's a pleasure to be with you. >> before we talk about your ideas for widening the audience, what inspired you? >> i was very inspired by this

series of broadcasts that took place in the '70s called previn in the pittsburgh. it was a series where andre previn basically came out and did these educational concerts in the evening for adults. airing in prime time. each program had a theme to it. and through this series i began to understand not only the conductor's ability to connect with the orchestra and over the life of the audience as well. i thought this might be a nice vehicle for me to express not only the thoughts i had about the music but also, in a larger way, to educate, which i think is so much of what the orchestraal world is about, bringing this music to other people. >> why do you think there's still not a very diverse

audience for classical music? >> because i think classical music has not been a part of many people's upbringing, their background. there was a time, of course, when you heard classical music in the background a great deal in cartoons, but now it's not so much a part of the mainstream. >> and people don't understand it so they shy away from it. >> there are many preconceived notions about what classical music is. so, part of the challenge now is breaking down those stereotypes. finding programs or events that bring people closer to the music and bring down this sort of stereotype of what classical music is. >> what are some of your other ideas for breaking down the barriers and really exposing new people to classical music? >> it's been on my mind the past weeks during this holiday season because there are a couple programs that have really

brought that home. one is an orchestra i called symphony on ice. it pairs olympic figure skaters with an orchestra and choirs from middle and high schools together in a live performance. now, what's unusual about that is that normally we think of ice skating to recorded music but it brings a totally different dimension when the orchestras there, you know, playing "it's the most wonderful time of the year," for example and, hear that. there's also a different appreciation for what the ice skaters do poetically. if you're playing an excerpt from the nutcracker, then you appreciate them in terms of their motion. and how rhythmically they do is timed. this was one example of, you know, something that's different

that takes the orchestra out of the concert hall into an ice skating rink. >> right. and you also try connect them with churches. >> there's a wonderful program called in unison and this is still going. was originally five churches. started off with five churches in the st. louis area. now has expanded to 30 churches. what's amazing about this program is that it went to the powell symphony hall where the st. louis symphony plays sits in the heart of the african-american community but that audience wasn't reflected in the audience. we met with the clergy coalition to determine how we could structure a program that would address that. bringing in different artists, wynton marsalis, efforts, and giving folks a part of that series standard works the orchestra plays. now there's an in unison chorus.

so i think that the key is at the beginning, finding ways to understand why the community isn't coming. what they're missing in the relationship. and then going to them. you know, one important part of that program is we took musicians into the churches. >> find them where they are. go to them. >> go to them. and so this, i feel, is really important for us. i'll be with toledo orchestra and playing in a church. i think these kind of programs are very important for breaking down that stereotype of what the orchestra is all about. >> good luck with your mission. thanks for being here. next on nbc10 "@ issue," the story of the week that has a lot of people saying, well, what goes around comes around, when we come right back.

who coined the term "side bread?" because there's nothing "side" about this bread. it may look like the moon. but it's the star of the show. unleash the power of dough. give it a pop. that sound. like nails on a chalkboard. but listen to this: (family talking) that's a different kind of sound. the sound of the weekend. unleash the power of dough.

give it a pop.

remember the ceo who recently came under fire for jacking up the price of a life-saving drug by 5,000%? well, now he's in hot water again. this time with the fbi. late last week agents arrested martin skreli on security fraud. he caused public outrage after his company bought a drug to treat a dangerous drug. he immediately began charging $750 a bill. before that it cost less than $14. after the uproar, the infamous ceo promised to drop the rice but instead reduced what his company charges doctors for the drug, which passed the costs to insurance. it was that scandal that helped start the government investigation. that's it for this edition of nbc10 "@ issue." join me tomorrow and every weekday beginning at 4:00 a.m.

have a great sunday. e else havel the fun? the sometimes haphazard, never boring fun. the why can't it smell like this all the time fun. the learning the virtue of sharing fun. why let someone else have all the fun? that's no fun. unleash the power of dough. give it a pop.

[♪] man: tree fu, go! [♪] ♪ come with tom ♪ tree fu tom ♪ to a world that's filled with fun ♪ ♪ it's tree fu tom ♪ adventure, magic too ♪ where tom and you ♪ help all of his magical friends ♪ ♪ twigs ♪ squirmtum ♪ ariela