Pubdate: Fri, 21 Aug 2015
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.

THE RISING EPIDEMIC OF HEROIN ADDICTION

If you think, as many Americans seemingly do, that heroin abuse is no 
longer a big problem in this country you are dead wrong.

Here are some facts behind the rising horror of heroin, as outlined 
in the unclassified version of the National Heroin Threat Assessment 
released in April by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, a recent 
report by the San Diego County Rx Drug Abuse Task Force and a report 
released Thursday by the San Diego Association of Governments:

In 2013, the latest year for which comprehensive figures were 
available, heroin overdoses killed 8,620 Americans. That's fully 25 
percent more deaths in one year than the total number of American 
military personnel killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. And it 
is nearly triple the number of heroin deaths in 2010.

Nationwide, heroin is available in larger quantities, at cheaper 
prices, is being used by a larger number of people and is spreading 
rapidly from the inner city to the suburbs. DEA arrests nearly 
doubled between 2007 and 2014, surpassing marijuana arrests for the 
first time last year.

In some markets, the heroin on the streets is of higher purity than 
in years past, causing accidental overdoses. In other markets, the 
heroin contains highly toxic adulterants such as fentanyl, often causing death.

In San Diego County, heroin overdose deaths shot up nearly 18 percent 
from 2009 to 2013, from 73 to 86. In 2014, the percentages of men and 
women booked into county jail who tested positive for heroin or other 
opiates were the highest since tracking began in 2000. The problem is 
severe enough locally that patrol deputies in the Sheriff's 
Department have been equipped to administer a drug that counteracts 
the effects of heroin and other opioids. As of this June, they had so 
far saved 11 lives.

Experts say the resurgent heroin epidemic stems in part from doctors' 
over-prescription of legal opioid pain killers such as oxycodone or 
its time-release cousin, OxyContin.

"As California particularly, but also many other states, clamped down 
on pill mills, and began to use prescription-drug monitoring 
programs, OxyContin and others became less available or, if they were 
available, they were more expensive and people then moved to heroin," 
Gil Kerlikowske, commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border 
Protection Agency and the former director of the White House Office 
of National Drug Control Policy, told the U-T editorial board this week.

"The other part is that there's a real naivete among young people 
about the dangers of heroin."

The Obama administration this week announced an initiative that seeks 
to shift emphasis in the battle against heroin and other narcotics 
from punishment to the treatment of addicts.

That's commendable and necessary, but it is merely nibbling at the 
edges of the problem. It is a $2.5 million program, limited to 15 
states from New England to Washington, D.C. It is not nearly enough.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom