COLOMBIA HEROIN ON STREETS IN NH

This Is The Second And Concluding Part Of A Series On The Rise In Heroin
Use In New Hampshire. The Heroin Sold On The Streets Of New Hampshire
Today Comes Almost Exclusively From South America, Where The Colombians
Have Cornered The Market Once Dominated By Southeast Asians.

The drug follows the old cocaine distribution routes through Mexico, New
York City and into Massachusetts. In New Hampshire, the city of Mancheste
remains the central hub.

State Police Sgt. Michael Hambrook, a supervisor in the Narcotics
Investigations Unit, said that although a lot of the heroin hitting the
Seacoast is brought directly from Massachusetts, a significant amount is
being filtered through Manchester.

From Lawrence and Lowell, Mass., it's just a short trip up the highway:
Interstate 95, I-93 and the Everett Turnpike. A newer, more distant
corridor along I-89 opened up in the mid-90s, investigators said.

Colombian drug dealers "piggybacked on the old cocaine distribution routes
and used the old cocaine traffickers," said Billy Yout, resident agent in
charge of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration's New Hampshire
office. "They appear to have an unholy alliance with Dominican traffickers."

Yout said DEA analysts have the ability to break down heroin and determine
where it comes from.

"The heroin in New Hampshire is coming from Colombia," he said.

As the purity levels of heroin rose from 3 percent in the 1970s to an
average of 60 to 65 percent in the 1990s and into 2000, the price per bag
dropped significantly, investigators said.

On the streets of Lawrence, according to Hambrook, a bag of heroin goes for
$4 to $6. The price increases the farther one gets away from Lawrence, he
said.

"The going rate in Manchester is $10 or $11," he said. "In Laconia, you
might be paying $16 a bag and be lucky to do that."

In Berlin, the price is about $25 a bag.

The western part of the state has not escaped heroin's scourge, either. In
1996, a Lawrence woman and her two sons set up shop in Newport along the
Connecticut River. For the year or so they were operating there, they did a
devastating amount of damage.

Sullivan County Attorney Marc Hathaway said the area continues to suffer
the ill effects of the Lydia Nunez operation.

Sullivan County, with a population of about 40,000, sits on the Connecticu
River and is home to several mill towns, including Newport and Claremont.

Nunez and her sons ran a heroin and cocaine network, sending dealers up
from Lawrence and New York, introducing the powerful narcotic to the
unsuspecting in those towns.

After a year, law enforcement officials were able to bring her and her
network down, but damage was already done, Hathaway said.

"She sent people up. We took down her first group of people. She sent up
another group. We took them down," he said. "Then we came to realize you
don't kill the snake by cutting of its tail."

Nunez, like others who push out to the street-level dealers, whether
cocaine or heroin, "kept sending up disposable dealers," Hathaway said.

It wasn't until authorities decided to go after the "queen pin" that the
flow of heroin into Sullivan County was cut off.

"Everybody, state police, the drug task force, this office, Newport and
Claremont police. It became everybody's No. 1 priority," Hathaway said.

"We did a good job with it and we were fortunate, but we still have a
resident population of addicts that we've never had before," he said.

"The Nunez ring and the spin-off have really had a serious impact on the
medical health and well-being of a significant number of households here,"
he said.

He talks of a 40-year-old businessman who, along with his wife, got hooked
on heroin.

"He had a good business and a wife who was working as a professional. They
both became addicted to heroin. They lost their house. They both went to
prison. She lost her career," Hathaway said.

The wife is out of prison now and her husband will be soon, he said.

"But both are now facing a lifelong addiction," he said.

That powerful physical and psychological addiction is another of heroin's
many down sides, Hambrook said.

"I know a guy who was a doctor. He was an addict and has been clean for 30
years. He told me that it's still the first thing he thinks about when he
wakes up in the morning and the last thing he thinks about when he goes to
sleep at night," Hambrook said.

State Police Sgt. Robert Quinn, who works with Hambrook, said the drug
seems to take over peoples lives.

"You can go down to Lawrence at 8 in the morning and spend the day just
picking off New Hampshire addicts," Quinn said.

Since 1997, Sullivan County has accounted for 5 percent of the state's
heroin overdose deaths. There have been no heroin-related deaths in
Belknap, Coos or Grafton counties, according to statistics kept by Dr.
Thomas Andrew, the state's chief medical examiner.

Not surprising, considering its population and its proximity to the home
bases of heroin, Hillsborough County has the greatest percentage - 42 - of
heroin overdose deaths in the past three-and-a-half years, followed by
Rockingham County with 23 percent.

But there is a significant problem, investigators said, in the Seacoast
region, too.

In March, state police broke up a ring in Hampton they said was moving
thousands of bags of heroin from Lawrence, Mass., into the Granite State.

James Norris, commander of the Attorney General's Task Force, said an
operation like that comes as no surprise.

"I think it's heavily focused on the Seacoast because of the access, via
the highway, to Lowell and Lawrence," he said. "There's 95 and 495, the
ability to use the highway system. That makes it worthwhile. A half-hour
down, a half-hour back.

Ray McGarty, executive director of Southeastern New Hampshire Services, a
drug and alcohol treatment facility in Dover, calls it the "Lawrence express."

"One or two kids will get in the vehicle, go down, buy it and buy enough to
sell to others to pay for their own habits," he said.

Heroin today is fairly easy to transport.

A bag of heroin holds .02 grams. Manchester Police Sgt. Robert Moore
explained that it takes 50 bags to make one gram.

"They're glassine bags," Norris said. "They're pretty easily hidden. You
can take 100 bags of heroin and put it in your pocket. There'll be a bulge
in your pocket, but not like a pound of marijuana."

Dealers stamp a logo on each bag, so users can recognize where the drug is
coming from. There was a rash of shamrocks on the Seacoast recently, while
red devils were showing up in Manchester.