Pubdate: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 Source: Lethbridge Herald (CN AB) Copyright: 2012 The Lethbridge Herald Contact: http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/239 Katie May GROWING HEROIN USE LOCALLY CONCERNS POLICE Heroin's popularity is surging in Lethbridge as city police try to get ahead of the trend. Lethbridge police are seeing monthly increases in street sales of the illegal narcotic and have a number of investigations ongoing in the wake of the city's first heroin trafficking conviction earlier this week, according to Staff Sgt. Wes Houston. Houston is the officer in charge of a police team that targets drug crime called the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT) combined special enforcement unit in Lethbridge. He said police are concerned that the potent drug, which carries a high risk of overdose, is emerging as one of Lethbridge's main drugs of choice. "Crack cocaine is still the number one drug, and heroin is starting to creep up on it." Most local dealers and users bounce back and forth between heroin and crack cocaine depending on which drug is more plentiful in the city, so police have to shift their investigations accordingly, Houston said, explaining that tracking down heroin dealers is no easier for police than catching crack pushers. A spike in availability of either drug often leads to increases in thefts and property crimes as users steal to support their habits, he said. But the dangerous difference between the two drugs is that it takes less heroin to get high, which Houston warns could cause more overdose deaths. Heroin only recently started to pop up on Lethbridge streets, usually via Vancouver or Calgary, and local police laid their first heroin trafficking charges in April 2011 after seizing a shipment of nine ounces of heroin - worth about $100,000 - that they believed was destined for Lethbridge, Houston said. "That kind of shocked us and since then we've seen it increase the demand on the street level," he said. An undercover investigation busted a street deal in August and led to a conviction for a Lethbridge man, who was sentenced Sept. 27 to two years less a day in jail. Other cases are still before Lethbridge Provincial Court. Houston compares heroin's rising popularity to a surge in demand for methamphetamine (meth) in Lethbridge about a decade ago. "We thought 'uh-oh,' but it never really evolved. We find it here and there, but there isn't huge demand or huge supply," Houston said of meth in Lethbridge. "And then all of a sudden, 10 years later, we start seeing heroin increase and unlike the methamphetamine that didn't really take hold, this is taking hold." - --- MAP posted-by: Matt