Source: Dallas Morning News Pubdate: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com Author: Linda Stewart Ball / The Dallas Morning News STUDY: RISE IN AGENCY'S CASES REFLECTS HEROIN PROBLEM But crack, alcohol still area's biggest concerns, official says The number of heroin addicts seeking help at a Dallas referral agency jumped dramatically last year, an increase that reflects the drug's growing popularity across Texas, according to a forthcoming state report. The study analyzed records for 2,468 people who sought help at the Greater Dallas Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse last year. It found that 2.6 percent of the people seeking help in the first four months of 1997 named heroin as their primary drug. For the year's last four months, that figure climbed to 12.6 percent. "It was absolutely startling," said Brandy Wismer, chief executive officer of the Greater Dallas Council. "I've been here for eight years, I've never seen a trend change like this so quickly. And it has been very persistent; it has not dipped back down at all." The increase was especially dramatic considering that only 2 to 3 percent of the council's clients were heroin users in previous years, the report said. Adolescents and young adults living in the suburbs appear to be largely responsible for the increase, Ms. Wismer said. "But I don't want to lose the concept that alcohol and crack cocaine are still the most prevalent problems that we have," she said. From January to June 1997, Parkland hospital had 311 cocaine overdoses, 44 from heroin and 19 from methamphetamines, said Dr. Paul Kolecki, an emergency room physician at Parkland and assistant medical director of the North Texas Poison Center. "Cocaine is the main drug here," Dr. Kolecki said. "Drug trends are kind of like shopping trends: When something is popular it's hard to get rid of it. The heroin dealers couldn't sell in downtown Dallas, so they went out to Plano; at least that's the theory." Jane C. Maxwell, a researcher with the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, doubts the number of heroin users will ever exceed the number of people abusing alcohol. Heroin however, seems to be attracting new users faster than crack. "We're just seeing more and more of these new users of heroin," she said. "And that worries me." The commission report, "Heroin Trends in Texas," is scheduled to be released later this week. Its results will be used in research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The commission has been monitoring heroin use in the Dallas area for a couple of years, but its latest report "picks up other sites that are also reporting purer heroin, cheaper heroin and more use by young people," Dr. Maxwell said. Austin, Fort Worth, Houston, Lubbock and San Antonio are seeing an increase in heroin use, while it's remained steady in El Paso, the commission report states. Dallas and Tarrant counties are the only two areas in Texas where the number of heroin-related deaths is climbing, Dr. Maxwell said. According to the commission report, 44 people who died from heroin overdoses in 1996 were from Dallas County, and 32 were from Tarrant County. Last year, at least 12 Collin County residents between the ages 13 and 37 died from heroin overdoses, Ms. Wismer said. The Dallas area is a prime location for Colombian and Mexican drug trafficking organizations in part because of the international airport and the junction of four major interstate highways, said Julio Mercado, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Dallas Field Division. "It's easy to get here and then to other parts of the country," he said. " ... [The dealers] go into the area and saturate the area with free samples until they get people hooked." Law enforcement at the federal, state and local levels working closely together to identify the distributors have been successful, he said. But the demand for the drug continues, and affordable and comprehensive treatment programs are scarce. From 1992 to 1996, 53 percent of the people who died from heroin were white; 81 percent were male, and the average age was 38. Ms. Wismer said she is frequently asked exactly where the heroin addicts live. After doing an analysis by ZIP code, she found that no neighborhood is immune. "It's not just clustered in the city of Plano or McKinney," she said. "We're seeing those cases all throughout the metropolitan area, in the inner city as well as out in the suburbs. But we do seem to have a higher percentage than we would expect in the suburban area." Marsha Levin, program administrator for Collin County's Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center, said the facility gets a lot of calls from frightened parents seeking substance-abuse information for their children. "We've seen an increase in heroin, an increase in IV drug abusers, which is surprising with all the stuff on AIDS," Ms. Levin said. "It's very unfortunate that there's that kind of mass destruction going on. Heroin .. I guess that's our atom bomb. It's scary." - --- Checked-by: (trikydik)