Pubdate: Sat, 08 Feb 2014
Source: Standard-Speaker (Hazleton, PA)
Copyright: 2014 The Standard-Speaker
Contact:  http://www.standardspeaker.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1085

A SNAPSHOT OF HEROIN'S STRONGHOLD

The brilliant actor Philip Seymour Hoffman's death Feb. 2 vaulted
heroin to the front page. Police found Hoffman dead in his bathroom
with a needle in his arm and several packets of heroin nearby.

But the preceding weeks revealed the destructive power of heroin and
worse, its staying power.

In Pennsylvania alone in January, at least 22 people died after
injecting doses of heroin that had been contaminated with the powerful
synthetic pain-killer fentanyl, which authorities described as being
100 times more powerful than morphine.

That was part of a three-state toll of more than 50 people who have
died from the contaminated heroin.

State and federal investigators are engaged in a frantic search for
the source of the deadly mixture, which could have been contaminated
anywhere from the source of the pure drug in Afghanistan or Mexico to
anywhere along the international distribution chain to the local
dealer. Authorities tried to warn users even as the death toll mounted.

Northeastern Pennsylvania, and Hazleton in particular, has had
problems with heroin, fueled partly by proximity to distribution
networks in New York and New Jersey.

There is no easy answer to the problem. Enforcement chips away at the
supply while inadequate treatment options chip away at demand. The
federal government needs to invest more in research for a means to
break the addiction's powerful grip.

But Hoffman's case also demonstrates that power. He had been drug-free
for more than 20 years. In a sad foreshadowing of what was to come,
when asked who he was by someone at the Sundance Film Festival who had
not recognized him, the Oscar-winning veteran of more than 50 films
and scores of stage plays responded, "I'm a heroin addict." 
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