Boone County Sheriff Tony Harris joins fight against addiction with Life's Journey Recovery Center

Boone County Sheriff Tony Harris will sit in a dunk tank Sept. 5 for a good cause.

Life’s Journey Recovery Center will operate the dunk tank from 5-7 p.m. in front of Klooz Brewz at Meridian and Washington streets in Lebanon. Michael Crouch, a Life’s Journey Church pastor, will take the hot seat from 5-6 p.m., and Harris will take it at 6 p.m.

Proceeds will help Life’s Journey Recovery Center provide support, meetings and treatment for those breaking free, or recovering, from addiction.

The ministry and church now operate a donation closet and food pantry and provide 12 secular and non-secular recovery meetings per week at the church, 522 W. Powell St., Lebanon. Anyone is welcome to any of their services.

The group also serves meals at 6 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays ahead of meetings, Crouch said.

Harris has attended a few recovery meetings to meet attendees and offered his time in the dunk tank to support the group. The church and ministry receive no grants and are supported solely on fundraisers and donations.

Other Life’s Journey pastors are Ken Gritton and Gordon Acord.

Test strips for methamphetamine and fentanyl detection and the opioid reversal drug, Narcan, will be available for free at the dunk tank booth.

The test strips can be used as part of a harm reduction strategy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Users can test their heroin, pills, injectables, or methamphetamine to see if they also contain fentanyl.

Drug dealers can get fentanyl inexpensively and often cut, or dilute, the other drugs they sell with fentanyl. But fentanyl is much more potent.

It’s legal for anyone to carry Narcan for emergencies. Narcan is available for free at several locales in Lebanon, Whitestown, Zionsville and Frankfort. Find a larger list of free sources of Narcan at https://optin.in.gov/.

Narcan is available for free at CVS stores in Lebanon and Whitestown; Meijer in Zionsville; and also in Lebanon at Walgreens, 1130 N. Lebanon St.; Walmart, 2440 N. Lebanon St.; The Boone County Health Department, 116 W. Washington St.; Youth and Family Health Network, 114 S. Meridian St.; 227 E. Superior St.; and Life’s Journey Church, 522 W. Powell St.

The event is part of Lebanon City Market, which runs from 5-7 p.m. Tuesdays through September on Meridian and Main Streets in downtown Lebanon.

Fentanyl is a legal synthetic opioid that is 50-100 times more potent than morphine and used by medical professionals to treat severe pain, such as pain associated with advanced cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It is often reserved for the terminally ill.

Fentanyl is also an illicitly made, highly potent, deadly opioid made primarily in clandestine labs in China and Mexico but also in Canada and the United States, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

Fentanyl is inexpensive and can be ordered and shipped to dealers. Drug dealers “cut,” or replace heroin with it, which results in far more frequent overdoses and deaths.

What today’s dealers and users call heroin is all or nearly all fentanyl cut with substances such as lactose powder to add bulk and dilute it and no heroin, Lebanon Police Detective Eric Adams said. Adams is a member of the Hamilton-Boone County Drug Task Force.

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