Pubdate: Wed, 02 Sep 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Courtland Milloy

WITH SHIFT IN FACE OF HEROIN, COMPASSION EMERGES

Along with the nation's sharp jump in heroin overdoses has come a 
startling revelation, often called "the new face of heroin." It is a 
white face, mostly middle-class and suburban, "far from the 
stereotype of the shivering urban junkie," as the Christian Science 
Monitor put it this year.

In an article about a white high school soccer star's ultimate 
triumph over heroin, the Deseret News in Salt Lake City put the 
emergence of the new face this way: "Leaving sports and school 
behind, she morphed, in her own words, from a 'pretty girl' to a 
'ghetto Barbie,' sinking into a lifestyle once thought to leave young 
people like [her] untouched."

And with a plethora of similar accounts, heroin addiction is being 
seen in a whole new light.

"This used to be considered an urban problem, but it's not anymore," 
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said in February when he announced a 
new, "holistic" strategy to curb heroin supply and demand. Fatal 
heroin overdoses in the state increased from 464 in 2013 to more than 
500 last year. "I know the kind of devastation it can cause for 
families and communities," Hogan said, "but still I was shocked by 
how widespread this problem had become."

In Virginia, where fatal heroin overdoses dropped from 213 in 2013 to 
210 in 2014, legislators have addressed the problem with uncommon 
compassion. In a 100-to-0 vote, they passed the "911 Good Samaritan 
Act," which says that anyone who helps an overdose victim will be 
safe from prosecution-even if that person was also using drugs.

Advocates for heroin addicts in the District should have been so 
lucky. They couldn't get Congress to approve a needle-exchange 
program for a decade, even though it would have saved countless lives.

"I'm glad to see public opinion starting to come around. I just wish 
it had happened sooner," said Kurt L. Schmoke, president of the 
University of Baltimore, who served as mayor of Baltimore in the late 1980s.

During the height of the nation's "war on drugs," Schmoke also argued 
for needle-exchange programs, making the case that addiction ought to 
be treated as a disease and not a crime. At the time, the urban 
junkie was seen as simply lacking in character and moral fiber, fit 
less for drug treatment than for jail or a grave.

Nowadays, the contempt has turned to pity.

In Gloucester, Mass., for instance, the police chief has offered to 
help opiate addicts who walk into the police station and hand over 
the drugs. "We will walk them through the system toward detox and 
recovery," the chief wrote on Facebook. "We will assign them an 
'angel' who will be their guide through the process. Not in hours or 
days, but on the spot."

He made the move after the fourth fatal heroin death in three months 
in a city of 30,000 people.

In Cook County, Ill., policy proposals by the state's attorney will 
allow low-level heroin users to get into treatment programs and out 
of custody "almost immediately," making it less likely that they will 
lose their jobs or custody of their children.

Teresa Wiltz, writing for the Pew Charitable Trust's Stateline, asked 
drug experts about the simultaneous rise in "harm reduction" drug 
laws and the emergence of the new face. The responses were surprisingly frank.

"With the changing demographics, there is the ability to frame this 
as a public health issue because many policymakers and law 
enforcement folks seem to relate to white users who are experiencing 
heroin use disorders more than people of color," Kathie Kane-Willis, 
director of the Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy at Roosevelt 
University, told Wiltz.

On Monday, not long after unveiling a heavily treatment oriented plan 
for reducing drug addiction, President Obama declared September 
"National Addiction Recovery Month."

The Deseret News gave us an example of the kind of person recovery 
month is aimed at highlighting and celebrating.

"I didn't care about my family. I just really had no purpose," she 
told the paper. Nearly out of hope before getting help, she said, 
"Well, I'm going to be a heroin addict for the rest of my life and 
that's how it is.'"

Had she been a shivering urban junkie, the odds are that's how it 
would have been.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom