Wave of heroin use touches region
By Philip Dine
POST-DISPATCH WASHINGTON BUREAU
05/07/2006
WASHINGTON
The telephone call that came in to the St. Louis County Multi-Jurisdictional Drug Task Force seemed routine enough - Vinita Park's police chief wanted help investigating a local "drug house."
St. Louis County police Capt. Tom Jackson, who runs the 70-member drug task force, sent his street enforcement team to check things out.
After they staked out the house, a task force member approached it and soon had what police used to dealing with methamphetamine, cocaine and other locally common drugs call an unexpected offer - top-quality, highly pure white heroin from Asia.
Responding that he needed to see whether a colleague wanted it, the officer left but later returned and purchased a couple of ounces of heroin. During the next few weeks, task force members made several more buys and in mid-December 2004 - six weeks after the chief's initial call - they executed a search warrant and arrested nine people in a case now awaiting trial.
That incident, Jackson says, "kicked off a series of heroin seizures." It was also an early sign of a troubling, yet largely unnoticed, trend in the St. Louis area: the rise of a new source of heroin that is increasing the overall supply and expanding demand. Because the powdery white Asian heroin - flowing mostly from Afghanistan - can be smoked or snorted, users are able to avoid the health risks and stigmas associated with hypodermic needles.
"There is an increase in heroin use in communities where we haven't seen it so much in the past," Jackson says. "We are seeing middle-class high school students experimenting with heroin."
Partly as a result, county task force seizures of heroin have risen fivefold over two years, with arrests more than doubling.
Illinois State Police Lt. Terry Lemming, statewide drug enforcement coordinator, says he's observing much the same phenomenon in suburbs around Chicago.
"It's being used by a group of people that 10 years ago would never have used it," Lemming says, noting that in his small hometown outside Chicago three people died of heroin overdoses two weeks ago. "Just in the last couple of years, the purity of Chicago heroin has gone up dramatically. So it's being used by people who hate needles."
The risk of overdose increases as users consume the amount they previously had, without considering the increased potency of what they're now ingesting. "You know what happens with that - the users die," says Dr. Chris Long, toxicologist for St. Louis and St. Louis County.
Indeed, heroin-related deaths have risen sharply in the region in the past four years, according to medical examiners.
Four years after the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the failure to stem a subsequent explosion in opium poppy cultivation and heroin production - particularly over the past two years of record yields - is gradually making itself felt in the United States.
Drug officials in President George W. Bush's administration see no cause for alarm. While acknowledging they lack up-to-date nationwide figures, they deny there is any indication of a worsening problem caused by the flow of Afghan heroin.
"We're concerned about this, we watch it daily, but as yet we see no evidence of a major change," says David Murray, special assistant to the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "As yet, our national monitoring system is not going off, bells are not ringing."
Told that St. Louis and Chicago officials are concerned about more heroin and a different type that is attracting new users, Murray says they're likely basing that on "anecdotal impressions" stemming from an incident here or there.
Dr. Mary Case, chief medical examiner for St. Louis County since 1988, doesn't buy that.
"We see lots of heroin. We see it in lots of young people where we never used to see it," Case says. "I don't know why they would say this is anecdotal. I know what I see; I know what I write on a death certificate. That's hard data, not anecdotal. It's a striking phenomenon."
Rep. Mark Kirk, a Republican from suburban Chicago, calls Afghan heroin "a unique danger." He says emergency room visits related to heroin use have jumped 400 percent over two years in Chicago's heavily populated suburbs.
"Suburban kids find needles to be extremely offensive, and that has proven to be a strong barrier to suburban heroin use," he says. "But Afghan heroin comes in the purest form, and now that it is entering the country it is allowing drug dealers to offer heroin to new markets."
Kirk reacts strongly to those who question whether there's a mounting problem from Afghan heroin: "Someone who says that reminds me of someone sitting in a bar in New Orleans saying they've heard of Hurricane Katrina but it hasn't hit yet."
Chicago to St. Louis
Federal attention to Afghan heroin has been focused mainly on its impact on the Asian country's drive toward stability and on the Taliban insurgents who derive funding from trafficking. U.S. officials note that most Afghan heroin goes to Iran, Russia or Western Europe - relatively little to this country. Yet its impact on Missouri and Illinois seems anything but small, and several factors make the domestic development a disquieting one.
One is the sheer volume of Afghan heroin, which the United Nations says now accounts for 87 percent of the world supply. That means that even a small share making its way to the United States constitutes large quantities of the drug. Afghan heroin now represents up to 20 percent of all heroin in the United States, Drug Enforcement Administration officials say, up from 7 to 9 percent as recently as 2003.
Administration officials play down the prospect of a rapid spread of Afghan heroin, saying it takes time for distributors to set up networks in a new country because they must compete with existing gangs and also gain the trust of consumers.
But Missouri and Illinois law enforcement officers say that's already occurring. Drug enforcers say Chicago, along with New York and Los Angeles, is one of three main heroin entry points. What sets Chicago apart is the diversity of its heroin supply, which includes all four major types: Mexican, South American (mostly Colombian), Southwest Asian (mostly from Afghanistan) and Southeast Asian.
The entry of Afghan heroin to Chicago sometimes involves overseas flights to O'Hare Airport, other times land shipments from the East Coast. Drug traffickers, often Nigerians or other West Africans, unload it to local street gangs, such as the Gangster Disciples or Vice Lords, who transport some to large markets near Chicago, including St. Louis, police say.
The nature of the Afghan heroin, which can be inhaled, is at least as important as the amount turning up, says Mike Stansill, a DEA supervisor in St. Louis. South America also produces white heroin, which is widespread in eastern U.S. cities, but its purity is declining nationally and has been particularly low in St. Louis.
"Up until a couple of years ago, basically all we did see in St. Louis was Mexican (black) tar," Stansill says. "We have started to see Southwest Asian heroin, coming from Chicago. And we have seen the customer base for heroin users expanding to middle-class addicts. One of the things we have seen is that the users are not accustomed to the increased purity. They're basing their doses on the purity of the dope they're using to having. So you end up with the overdoses."
That's a volatile mix, says toxicologist Long. "Black tar looks like roofing tar; it's maybe 5 percent pure," he says. "White heroin is 10 percent and up; we've even seen reports of as much as 30 percent. There's a lot more of the white heroin out here, and we are seeing more opiate deaths."
Needles are the "big impediment to getting heroin to move up the food chain, to people with more money," he says. "If you go to a party and you see someone with track trains up and down their arms, it's the mark of the devil. But with smokable heroin, it broadens their client base."
Local impact
Jackson, a 27-year St. Louis County police veteran, says heroin's growing local presence is reflected in sharp rises in seizures by the drug task force - and a shift toward white Asian heroin. The force made 30 heroin arrests in 2004, 63 last year and 17 in this year's first quarter. A unit targeting heroin trafficking has been set up to identify midlevel dealers, make arrests and dismantle networks. Officers hope to wrap up a major investigation in the next few weeks.
"Heroin tends to be cyclical, but it really kind of came back with a vengeance; I guess it was two years ago it started happening," Jackson says. "For the heroin users, Asian white is the most wonderful thing they can get. It's the Mercedes of heroin. It's much easier to use than the black tar, and it generally has a higher morphine content."
St. Louis police Capt. Edward Kuntz, commander of the city's narcotics unit, says arrests for heroin have risen steadily from 344 in 2001 to 558 last year and are on pace this year to exceed 600. He adds that the samples "we have tested in our labs have been found to have an increased potency, so it's higher-purity white heroin."
Dr. Michael Graham, St. Louis chief medical examiner, has the task of recording the results of what he calls the "upswing in heroin." In 2001, a low point for poppy production in Afghanistan, St. Louis had 31 heroin-related fatalities. Since then, the yearly average has been 54, with victims almost evenly split between blacks and whites.
In St. Louis County, a medical examiner's analysis of heroin-related deaths shows 128 fatalities since 2001 - 12 in the first year, an average of 29 annually the past two years and nine in the first quarter of this year. Over that period, two Hispanics have died, along with 22 blacks and 104 whites - including 25 women. While the youngest victim in 2001 was 21, each subsequent year it's been a teenager, or younger - age 11 in 2004.
Lt. Craig McGuire of the St. Charles County sheriff's department says heroin seizures have risen every year since 2001, with 175 cases since Jan. 1, 2004.
"We're getting kids, mostly out of high school in the 20-to-24 age range, going down to the city to score some, then dealing it around here," McGuire says. "Heroin has always had that hard-core, inner-city connotation to it, but it's on the increase out here. The potential for overdose is great, compared to the other drugs."
Sgt. Jason Grellner, commander of the Franklin County Narcotics Enforcement Unit, says heroin is becoming more rampant in his county's eastern portion abutting St. Louis County.
"Heroin has always been seen as an inner-city drug, but we're getting to a point where things are becoming more socially acceptable, and heroin fits into that. It's not an opium den, needle in your arm, rubber band around your arm, any more," he says.
Metro East police officials say heroin use there remains uncommon, with meth their major concern. "Occasionally you'll get a heroin case, but they're far and few between," says Granite City police Chief Richard Miller. Illinois State Police have made just nine heroin arrests and 20 seizures since 2001 in St. Clair and Madison counties.
But Springfield, Ill., has seen an uptick in heroin, including white powder, says Sgt. Brad Zack of the police narcotics unit. "It is the new thing. You don't need a needle to enjoy it. We are exposed to it, and we do expect it to continue," Zack says. While Chicago is the "main hub," he adds, "being as we're right between St. Louis and Chicago, I wouldn't be surprised if it's coming both ways."
In Rockford, Ill., police issued a warning two weeks ago after some overdoses. "The last five years, we've seen an increase in the heroin use," says Sgt. Kurt Whisenand. "The vast majority of the heroin we see here in Rockford is the white heroin."
'Brace ourselves'
The Taliban cut Afghan poppy cultivation in 2001, the last year the radical rulers were in power. Production has since skyrocketed, spurred by impoverished Afghan farmers and insurgents seeking a funding source, a way destabilize the U.S.-backed Afghan government and a means to poison the West.
Even as overall U.S. drug use has declined, the number of Americans who have tried heroin rose from 314,000 in 2003 to 398,000 in 2004, the most recent year for which such figures exist, says Steve Robertson, a DEA spokesman in Washington.
The agency is aware of the potential Afghan drug threat to the United States, Robertson says. "The traffickers realize if they can make a purified version of heroin that can be smoked, all of a sudden it's not the addict in the alley," he says.
But, the White House's Murray says, those threats remain potential. And he says progress is being made on other fronts, including reducing the presence of South American heroin. While that creates an opening for Afghan heroin, there are no signs on a national level that it's filling the vacuum, he says.
"We have to step back and take a national perspective. We have a lot of drug threats. We have to make choices about where resources are most effective," Murray says. "So we've got to be cautious when somebody says there's Afghan heroin, and say, 'Let's calm down, sort this out, see what the evidence is, how solid it is.'"
But the Afghan heroin threat is already a reality, Rep. Kirk says, and the danger is that traffickers will exploit their growing network to flood the U.S. market. From his seat on the foreign operations panel of the House Appropriations Committee, Kirk is pressing for more resources to aggressively attack poppy production in Afghanistan and curtail drug exports.
Robertson says the DEA is doing its best to keep the lid on the new flow with its anti-poppy efforts in Afghanistan. "We're identifying the trend, we're targeting the traffickers, and with our international partners we're going to stop this," he says.
Yet, a third consecutive bumper poppy crop looms. U.N. figures show poppy planting up in 13 Afghan provinces, stable in 15, down in only three. And anti-drug efforts face stiff obstacles, as shown by the recent crash of a plane carrying U.S. and Afghan counternarcotics officials to remote Helmand Province. The mountainous southern region, bordering Pakistan, is expected to produce half the world's poppy this year.
"I guess," says St. Louis County's Jackson, "we better brace ourselves."
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Iraq-war editor : the growing of opium poppy and production of heroin was forbidden under Taliban, the punishment being public execution by the undemocratic mullas. Now that we have democracy brought to Afghanistan, we see that our life is also improving. Sorry for this bitter irony. |
