DRUG USE PATTERNS SHIFT WITH AVAILABILITY

Drug abusers in and around Hamilton County are not picky.

Sheriff?s Office narcotics officer Lt. Van Hinton said the local drug
culture is ?poly-drug,? meaning that dealers will shift their product
depending on what?s available and what users want.

?They take what they can get,? he said.

An increase in prescription drug abuse and sales in the black
community and a recent heroin bust suggest two new developments in the
drug scene.

Hinton, who is black, said he's seen more illegal use and sales of
prescription drugs among blacks over the last two years, especially
among inner-city residents.

Opportunity and demand seem to have sparked the increase in
prescription drug problems, he said. Often those drugs are taking the
place of illicit street drugs, such as cocaine, when users and dealers
can't find a steady supply, he said.

For dealers, selling individual Oxycotin pills for $60 is just as
profitable as street drugs and abusers can find prescription drugs
everywhere, he said.

?It?s as easy as some teenager going into his grandmother?s purse and
grabbing some pills,? he said.

In addition, Hinton said sheriff?s investigators completed a
four-month investigation into heroin sales with three arrests in early
July. The drug had been transported from Atlanta and distributed as
far away as Detroit.

?Although there?s not a heavy amount of heroin, we do see this as a
problem that may be coming to our area,? he said.

A 2009 Drug Enforcement Administration report showed 59 kilograms of
heroin seized in Tennessee for the previous year.

The report also noted that, in 2008, ?there has been no great change
in the demand for the drug? though ?an increase in heroin availability
and highway interdiction was reported.?

Ben Scott, Chattanooga?s DEA resident agent in charge, said federal
investigators spend a lot of time tracking down a drug?s source.

?As trafficking patterns change, if you put a lot of pressure in one
spot, then it pops up somewhere else,? Scott said.

The result of chronic drug abuse can be seen in numbers from the
Tennessee Department of Health showing 272 emergency room visits for
drug overdose in Hamilton County in 2008.

Hospitals in the surrounding dozen counties had a combined total of
748 such visits. Statewide hospitals reported 6,433 visits.

The report did not break down visits by drug or drugs
used.

Nancy Holland manages the adult outpatient program for Parkridge
Valley Behavioral Health, which treats both psychiatric and substance
abuse patients.

She said the majority of her patients abuse a combination of alcohol
and prescription drugs.

Often patients begin using the drug with a legitimate prescription for
a medical condition, then develop an addiction, she said.

?If they lose their opportunity to continue to obtain the drug that
they have been using, then they will start looking for options,?
Holland said.

Users will seek out drugs that have similar effects, but if desperate,
they will take what they can find, she said.

Tally

2008 federal drug seizures in Tennessee*

(In kilograms)

Cocaine: 1,375

Heroin: 53

Methamphetamine: 145

Marijuana: 1,160

Hashish: 42

Meth lab incidents: 533

* Most recent year available

Source: Drug Enforcement Administration