AN OLD SCOURGE RETURNS TO PLAGUE A BATTERED CITY

Last Sunday, Advance reporter Reginald Patrick reported what many of us who
know the streets already feared -- heroin, the new old drug, is back,
having toppled cocaine, especially crack cocaine (the free-based form made
by cooking cocaine powder, water and baking soda), from its perch.

Last year, when the first documented reports began surfacing, the fear that
had been so long a part of ugly history, reared its head once more. Heroin,
or "smack," cut a swath through Harlem during the 1940s and 1950s that left
almost 50 percent of the adult male population either dead or among the
walking dead. The specter of death that was heroin was fictionalized --
quite realistically -- by Claude Browne, who authored the classic "Manchild
in the Promised Land." Mr. Browne died Feb. 2 in his beloved Harlem from a
lung condition.

Published in 1965, "Manchild" gave white America its first real insight not
into only the poverty and racism found in Harlem, but into the complex of
drug addiction of which heroin was so much a part during the years before
it burst from its racial boundaries into other parts of the city.

Back then, heroin was thought to be a "Negro" problem. Of course, this
race-based assumption was false. Heroin had been popular for centuries; it
had actually filtered down because of its low cost to predominately
minority neighborhoods.

The synthesis of morphine by Friedrich Sertuerner of Germany in 1803 led
physicians to label the drug as "God's own medicine." The mid-19th century
invention of the hypodermic syringe and the use of injectable morphine as a
pain reliever during the Civil War led to the first wave of morphine
addiction. In 1895, Heinrich Dreser, who worked for the Bayer Company in
Germany, synthesized heroin. Bayer began marketing the drug in 1898 and by
the early 1900s, heroin was seen as a potential solution to the increasing
problem of morphine addiction, a problem increasingly faced by white women
who were prescribed the drug in everything from tonics to elixirs to soda pop.

By the early 1900s, free samples of heroin was being shipped across the
country to morphine addicts, thanks to the philanthropic St. James Society.
Heroin addiction increased to alarming levels. The second wave of heroin
addiction began in the 1930s and was closely identified with the Harlem
jazz culture. It quickly became the most popular drug of the Beatnik
culture and Hollywood actors of the 1950s.

Later, American servicemen in Vietnam, according to a fact-finding mission
by then-Rep. Robert Steele (R-Conn.), had a heroin addiction rate of 10 to
15 percent. By the 1980s and 1990s, an almost pure form of heroin was
killing addicts across the country. It was being not only shot, but snorted
and smoked. Cocaine and crack cocaine -- thought to be safer than shooting
heroin -- became the drug of choice among Wall Streeters and secretaries.
Crack, the more deadly version of cocaine, was even cheaper and became
popular in minority neighborhoods. The penalty for possession of cocaine
was relatively minor compared with that meted out for crack. As was the
case with the old heroin, addiction and death stalked users.

Now, like some biblical plague, heroin is back and the purity is top of the
line, and it's no accident that it's far cheaper than cocaine or crack.

No borough is exempt, as Mr. Patrick's excellent front-page article
explained. Heroin use among young people of all races in all areas of
Staten Island is an increasing problem.

However, unlike in the time period described by Mr. Browne in "Manchild" --
when an addict said he was going to "Lexington" he wasn't referring to
125th and Lexington in Harlem, but Lexington., Ky., for the low-cost cure
- -- today's addicts, especially those who are poor, will not find getting
the monkey off their backs as easy or inexpensive.

The city of New York is in a financial hole that is $5 billion deep. Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, as of last week, has ordered the elimination of a
long-standing city policy that paid for treatment for drug- addicted teens.

The city Human Resources Administration paid up to $1,000 a month each
towards the treatment of adolescents and teens in residential
rehabilitation centers. This fee was paid regardless of the young person's
family's income level.

Beginning in September, the city will not foot this bill for youths who
enter treatment. According to the administration, the practice violates the
new welfare laws that were a cornerstone of George Bush's campaign for the
presidency and were passed by Congress. Under the existing welfare
limitations, such payments are disallowed for young people who seek drug
treatment.

So next month, only the youth from wealthy or well-off families will be
able to afford treatment. City health officials are warning that patients
from poor or lower middle-class families will likely be eliminated from
drug rehab programs because neither they nor their families can afford the
expense.

This is akin to cutting off a nose to spite a face.

The number of heroin and other drug-addicted teens and young people is
growing. Over the last decade, drug-related cases in New York State have
increased by 400 percent, according to a study commissioned in 2000 for the
New York City Bar Association. In New York City alone, 75 percent of all
people arrested tested positive for drugs, and the rate of repeat offenses
among non-violent offenders who are addicts can be as high as 35 percent,
the report revealed.

The state spends nearly $650 million a year to imprison drug offenders --
or $29,000 per prisoner. At the same time, the more than 1,200 drug
treatment centers in the state are full to capacity. A court-ordered
drug-treatment plan unveiled last year and heralded by law enforcement, may
be in jeopardy since most of the treatment under the plan is paid for by
Medicaid or public assistance, something that is now disallowed or severely
reduced under new welfare guidelines.

It can only be hoped that the Bloomberg administration finds a way to
restore the money to the program because it is a sure bet that we pay now
or we pay later, but either way, we are going to pay for the return of heroin.