HEROIN TRENDS DISTURBING

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - We are alarmed at the doubling in the number of
Colorado teens and young adults seeking treatment for heroin addiction.

Heroin, which has become cheaper, more available and more potent, is
especially pernicious because its addiction is so powerful. Weaning users
from this opiate is a long-term struggle with no guarantee of success.

The state's Alcohol and Drug Abuse division reports Colorado young people
are snorting or smoking heroin, wrongly believing that they won't become
junkies. Tragically, they do get hooked and hooked hard.

Post reporter Carol Kreck reported Monday that Colorado admissions at
treatment facilities for heroin users 18 to 25 years old increased from
148, or 8.9 percent of total admissions, in 1993 to 346, or 16.7 percent of
total admissions in 1999.

At the national level, 471,000 people used heroin for the first time
between 1996 and 1999. A quarter of the new users were under 18, and 47
percent were 18 to 25.

Despite these disturbing trends, very little has been done to reduce or
treat heroin use among our young, according to state and city officials.

It's embarrassing to learn that Colorado ranks 49th out of the 50 states in
spending on drug-use prevention and research, acing out only Georgia.

We'd like to think otherwise, but it seems to us that this lack of action
reflects less-than-subtle racism. Many whites long have viewed heroin as a
ghetto drug, but during the last decade, more whites started using heroin
while use among African-Americans and Latinos declined.

That the state is so unprepared to treat young victims of heroin addiction
is inexcusable - putting off a difficult task seldom makes it any easier to
cope with.

In the case of heroin addiction, delay only makes treatment more difficult:
It takes from two to 10 years to get a junkie off heroin.

State and local officials should act quickly to create treatment programs
to rescue these young people. Otherwise, in a short time, there won't be
enough prison space to hold all the Colorado addicts who turn to crime to
get their fix.