Pubdate: Mon, 25 Dec 2006
Source: Plain Dealer, The (Wabash IN)
Copyright: 2006 Wabash Plain Dealer
Contact:  http://www.wabashplaindealer.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4212
Author: Robert Bryan
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

HEROIN MAKING MAJOR COMEBACK IN WABASH COUNTY

There may be a difference in opinion as to whether  heroin has become 
the drug of choice in Wabash County  or merely that, with more police 
resources devoted to  combating it, more arrests have issued.

Regardless, the very lively Chicago-to Wabash  connection in the 
heroin trade was one of the top  stories in Wabash County this year. 
Our newsroom  selected it the ninth biggest story.

The Wabash Police Drug Task Force thought the pipeline  serious 
enough that early this year they shifted some  of their resources 
from the old standbys - meth,  cocaine, marijuana, prescription drugs 
- - to heroin.

Officers speculated that one reason for the renewed  popularity of 
heroin was that it has grown relatively  inexpensive - in many cases 
half the price for a high  as from, say, OxyContin.

The Chicago-to-Wabash heroin connection, officers said,  mostly 
involves users who travel to Chicago to buy for  their own use and 
for some sales on a modest scale.

The Chicago to Wabash pipeline took on added urgency  late in the 
year, when task force officers reported  that Fentanyl, a very 
powerful painkiller produced in  clandestine labs, had been 
intercepted in the pipeline  here.

So similar looking is it to heroin that officers  intercepting it 
took it for heroin - until an Indiana

State Police lab identified it as the hot new drug  responsible for 
numerous overdose deaths in Chicago,  Detroit, Philadelphia and other 
major cities.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman