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WHITEFISH- Heroin use, along with the crimes related to the drug, have police in the Flathead on high alert.

Whitefish Police Chief Bill Dial says every community in the Flathead Valley is seeing a growing use of heroin, something he attributes the rise to the crackdown on prescription medications such as Oxycodone.

"We are seeing kind of an upsurge in heroin coming into the community. We think- we don't think- we know it's coming up from Mexico, going to the West Coast, Seattle area, Portland area, and it's being imported by drug dealers and people who deal in illicit drugs," Dial explained.

"The thing we want to make people aware of is, that heroin users will do anything to get their heroin. And we're seeing more and more people who are smoking it as opposed to the traditional injecting of it," Dial concluded.

He added his office will provide tests for heroin use, without the threat of arrest, if someone you know is in danger.