Source: Dallas Morning News 
Contact:     http://www.dallasnews.com
Pubdate: Sun, 5 Oct 1997

[This article received top billing on the front page of the 10597 Dallas
Morning News.] 

Heroin's grip extends beyond the inner city 

By Linda Stewart Ball and Ed Timms / The Dallas Morning News 

PLANO  Junkies used heroin in the inner city. Suburbia seemed a haven from
crime and violence.

But that illusion  and stereotype  began to crumble in Plano on New
Year's Eve, when Adam Wade Goforth, a 19yearold Marine, died of a heroin
overdose while he was visiting his folks for the holidays.

Since then, heroin has claimed at least seven other lives in Plano. Most
were teenagers or young adults.

Plano is far from alone. The rash of heroinrelated deaths is symptomatic
of suburbs across the nation.

Traffickers, especially Colombian cartels, see the suburbs as promising
markets because they are affluent, the users are naive and the police often
don't have much experience fighting drugs.

"They are looking for new clientele," said Julio Mercado, special agent in
charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Dallasarea office.
"They're pushing it on the youth, the teenagers. They're marketing now to
the suburbs."

Although heroin is newer to the suburbs, it's an old adversary for police
and drug counselors working in the inner city. Its use is rising there, too.

The increase in heroin use has prompted some police and community groups to
shift their priorities.

Plano police have created a task force, schools have hired drug counselors,
and preachers are starting to talk about the evils of heroin from the pulpit.

"I've been medical examiner here 10 1/2 years, and I didn't have one heroin
death out of Plano until Dec. 31, 1996," said Collin County medical
examiner William Rohr.

Dr. Larry Alexander, an emergency room physician at Columbia Medical Center
in Plano, said it's not uncommon for him to revive three or four heroin
overdose victims during a 12hour shift on the weekend.

"It's become such a prevalent thing that most of the time now when we find
a young person unconscious, we're thinking it's probably heroin, whereas we
used to first think it was from some kind of trauma," Dr. Alexander said.

Plano East High School graduate Rob Hill, 18, was Plano's latest reported
heroin casualty. He died in his bedroom after a party in Dallas on Aug. 20.

"I wish it would stop," Dr. Rohr said. "It's alarming. ... We've had people
sporadically in Dallas, Frisco, some in Allen, but nothing in Plano. Plano
had been spared."

Some youths who are already inclined to experiment with illegal drugs, such
as marijuana or cocaine, say they aren't about to pass up a free heroin high.

"I was kind of scared of the needle, but I did it anyway," said Plano
resident Nathan Hagens, 17, a selfdescribed former heroin user. "I
couldn't really tell you why. I really don't know. Maybe because I wanted
to have fun and get screwed up. I'm a teenager, and teenagers want to party."

Nathan's parents took him out of Plano schools this fall and enrolled him
in the McKinney district. They moved there in part to help him get a fresh
start. Nathan has been clean for about three months. He spent his summer
vacation in a rehabilitation program in Houston because, he said, he didn't
want to die.

"Parents are in denial," said Nathan's stepfather, Tiry Williams. "School
districts are in denial. ... I'm just scared."

The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse released in August reported "an
increasing trend in new heroin use since 1992" and said the rate of new
heroin use for 12 to 17yearolds has reached "historic levels."

In the Orlando, Fla., area, 30 heroin deaths were reported in 1996. That
was almost double the number in 1995. Teenagers accounted for 16 percent of
the Orlandoarea deaths in 1996, according to the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement.

Stacey Hall, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement,
said many of the victims were from Orlando's suburbs.

And a recent report by the federal Community Epidemiology Work Group, a
network of researchers, said that in Boston, heroin "has recently appeared
in more affluent middleclass and upperclass suburban communities." The
report also said that "police report continuing increases in white suburban
users coming into Newark (N.J.) to buy heroin."

The report cited "a surge in young heroin clients (age 2030) in suburban
and smaller communities." New users in Philadelphia were described as being
"more likely to be white, male or female, and age 1418 or 19."

Five kilos of Colombian heroin have been seized at Dallas/Fort Worth
International Airport since the beginning of the year. Dallas County does
not keep statistics about heroin deaths, and figures for the state of Texas
were not available.

"This is the first Colombian heroin that we've seen in the metroplex," said
DEA Agent Paul Villaescusa.

Law enforcement officials suspect that Colombian traffickers may be behind
much of the recent increase. DEA seizures of South American heroin 
primarily Colombian  grew from insignificant levels in 1991 to 32 percent
in 1994 to 62 percent in 1995.

Law enforcement officials say the traffickers have applied many common
business techniques to their heroin trade: They conducted market analyses
to identify lucrative new territories, improved the quality of their
product and lowered the price, and looked for markets where the risk
potential was lower. Those markets, officials say, are often in the
suburbs, where police had little experience with largescale trafficking
operations.

"The average purity in the United States used to be 3 to 7 percent," said
DEA Agent Mercado. "There's places where you can buy heroin right now, on a
street corner, at anywhere from 60 to 90 percent."

Agent Mercado said traffickers are offering another inducement to get new
customers. "They're giving it [heroin] for free until they get them
hooked," he said.

In some communities, traffickers tell new users that heroin is neither
addictive nor dangerous to use.

"They're selling it to yuppies in a club setting, and they're telling them
things like, 'If you snort it, it's not addictive,' which is totally
untrue," said Jane Maxwell, chief of research for the Texas Commission on
Alcohol and Drug Abuse.

Police officials say that snorting heroin removes some of the old stigma
associated with needles. They contend that heroin also has been glamorized
by Hollywood and for a time by the fashion industry, which promoted models
with a gaunt, darkeyed "heroin chic" look.

Ms. Hall of Florida said that heroin is often being mixed with alcohol and
cocaine and other drugs.

"A lot of kids . . . have the perception that as long as you're not
shooting it in your veins, it's not going to hurt you, that it's not that
bad," she said. "They're so wrong."

In some communities, traffickers don't use the word "heroin" when they're
pushing it. In Plano, it's sometimes called "chiva"  heroin mixed with an
overthecounter antihistamine.

Users are "not making the connection that chiva is heroin," said Rick
Hooker, coordinator of the Safe and Drug Free Schools program for the Plano
school system. "They're playing with dying, and that's the scary part. It's
almost like Russian roulette with a chemical."

Teenagers and young adults, especially, are at risk.

"We have a new generation that didn't learn the lessons their parents
learned, that heroin kills. ... " Ms. Maxwell said. "And unfortunately,
they're learning the hard way."

The impact of cheap, highquality heroin is not being felt just in the
suburbs.

Dallas police Sgt. Kenneth LeCesne said the purity of heroin is up and that
the price is down in the inner city, as well.

Neither the Dallas County medical examiner's office nor the state of Texas
keeps statistics on the specific drugs responsible for overdose deaths.
Sgt. LeCesne, who is assigned to the narcotics division, estimates that
there are 24 to 30 heroinrelated deaths every year in Dallas County. A
toxicologist for the medical examiner's office said he is detecting heroin
in more individuals, regardless of the cause of death.

Carolyn Harper works with substance abusers in Dallas. In the past three to
five years, she's seen more abusers using a combination of cocaine and
heroin  and more "heroin houses" opening up. The heroin is used to ease
the "down" of a cocaine high.

Ms. Harper said it's a longstanding problem in poorer minority
neighborhoods, but one that hasn't gotten the attention that the suburban
heroin deaths receive.

"Being in the southern sector of Dallas ... we're used to that, of the
focus not being in the AfricanAmerican and Hispanic communities as much as
it is in the affluent suburbs," said Ms. Harper, program director of
Welcome House, which provides services to substance abusers and individuals
who are HIVpositive. "It's sad, but that's the way it is."

Many Plano residents acknowledge that they had a false sense of security.

"From the outside, Plano looks real nice and like an ideal place to live.
... But we weren't really aware of what was happening to the kids on the
inside," said Steve Ransom, who recently placed his 18yearold stepson in
a Christianbased residential treatment program in East Texas.

"When you hear about the drugs, you automatically think of crack in South
Dallas," he said. "To hear how widespread this drug is in Plano is
mindboggling. ... And then to turn around and find this type of thing at
your doorstep or at your house, it's really scary. ... It's just
devastating."