Pubdate: Sat, 05 Apr 2014
Source: Cumberland Times-News (MD)
Copyright: 2014 Cumberland Times-News
Contact:  http://www.times-news.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1365
Author: Amy Forliti, Dan Sewell, Associated Press
Note: Part 1 of 3

'WE'RE ALL PAYING:' HEROIN SPREADS MISERY IN U.S.

Between 2006 And 2010, Overdose Deaths Rose 45 Percent

On a beautiful Sunday last October, Detective Dan Douglas stood in a
suburban Minnesota home and looked down at a lifeless 20-year-old - a
needle mark in his arm, a syringe in his pocket. It didn't take long
for Douglas to realize that the man, fresh out of treatment, was his
second heroin overdose that day.

"You just drive away and go, 'Well, here we go again,"' says the
veteran cop.

In Butler County, Ohio, heroin overdose calls are so common that the
longtime EMS coordinator likens the situation to "coming in and eating
breakfast - you just kind of expect it to occur." A local rehab
facility has a six-month wait. One school recently referred an
11-year-old boy who was shooting up intravenously.

Sheriff Richard Jones has seen crack, methamphetamine and pills plague
his southwestern Ohio community but calls heroin a bigger scourge.
Children have been forced into foster care because of addicted
parents; shoplifting rings have formed to raise money to buy fixes.

"There are so many residual effects," he says. "And we're all paying
for it."

Heroin is spreading its misery across America. And communities
everywhere are indeed paying.

The death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman spotlighted the reality that
heroin is no longer limited to the back alleys of American life. Once
mainly a city phenomenon, the drug has spread - gripping postcard
villages in Vermont, middle-class enclaves outside Chicago, the sleek
urban core of Portland, Ore., and places in between and beyond.

Cocaine, painkillers and tranquilizers are all used more than heroin,
and the latest federal overdose statistics show that in 2010 the vast
majority of drug overdose deaths involved pharmaceuticals, with heroin
accounting for less than 10 percent. But heroin's escalation is troubling.

Last month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the 45 percent
increase in heroin overdose deaths between 2006 and 2010 an "urgent
and growing public health crisis."

In 2007, there were an estimated 373,000 heroin users in the U.S. By
2012, the number was 669,000, with the greatest increases among those
18 to 25. First-time users nearly doubled in a six-year period ending
in 2012, from 90,000 to 156,000.

Experts note that many users turned to heroin after a crackdown on
prescription drug "pill mills" made painkillers such as OxyContin
harder to find and more costly. It's killing because it can be
extremely pure or laced with other powerful narcotics. That, coupled
with a low tolerance once people start using again after treatment, is
catching addicts off guard.

In hard-hit places, police, doctors, parents and former users are
struggling to find solutions and save lives.

"I thought my suburban, middle-class family was immune to drugs such
as this," says Valerie Pap, who lost her son, Tanner, to heroin in
2012 in Anoka County, Minn., and speaks out to try and help others.
"I've come to realize that we are not immune. ... Heroin will welcome
anyone into its grasp."
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