THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE

"Our days go by like everyone else's. We live in your communities. We work
normal jobs. We function normally. We're not part of any weird underground
social life. We're just like you 8A except for the heroin."

- - Lucinda, 19-year-old

heroin addict from Stamford

Heroin's re-emergence as the "drug of choice" across the nation, and here
at home, isn't news to Lucinda. She sees the faces of the people whose
lives have been ripped apart by the drug every day when she goes for her
daily dose of methadone.

Drug counselors and police say that in the mid-1990s they started noticing
more cases involving heroin. Now, the Drug Enforcement Administration says
heroin use is at levels not seen since the drug's peak in the 1960s and '70s.

That's not news to Rob Lambert, director of the Connecticut Counseling
Centers in Norwalk, or police, who have been making more arrests for heroin
use and sales.

"Every decade has its chic drug," Lambert said. "Every 12 years or so, we
burn out on one drug and shift to another. Cocaine was the drug of choice
in the 1980s. Now, it's heroin."

And there's another trend - the changing face of the heroin addict.

"Clearly, the group is getting younger and more middle class and more
Caucasian," according to Dr. Charles Morgan, a psychiatrist who works with
addicts in the substance-abuse program at Norwalk Hospital.

Lambert and John Hamilton, director of the Liberation, Meridian & Guenster
Programs based in Stamford, can attest to that.

"We have lawyers, businessmen, people going to college, working moms being
treated here. With the help of methadone, they're functioning in society,
they're employed, have families. 8A These are people whose neighbors would
never suspect [they] are heroin addicts," Lambert said.

"One of the largest methadone clinics is on Wall Street [in New York
City]," added Hamilton. "These people go get their treatment, then go and
trade on the floor all day."

The Rev. Milton Kalman, who runs the Bridgeport Rescue Mission, has noticed
the shift in drug abuse as well. "We see more and more heroin addicts every
day," he said. "There's so much emphasis on performing, people take drugs
to cope with the stress of living."

Bob knows the vicious cycle of heroin addiction. He's lived it for 25 years.

In 1975, when Bob was 14, he used heroin for the first time. He thought he
could stop as easily as he started.

"I hid behind the drugs a lot of years. Now, I'm dealing with problems
without drugs," said Bob (not his real name), who lives at the Bridgeport
Rescue Mission. "I pray constantly, and God helped me through a lot of
things. They say you've got to feel the pain before you feel the joy."

The 39-year-old carpenter, one in a growing population of people struggling
with heroin, has been staying at the Fairfield Avenue mission for about
five months, trying to establish a sober lifestyle. He is one of 35 men and
14 women in the residential program who use religion to beat their addiction.

Other addicts depend on methadone to help them stop using the drug.

Treatment centers fill up

Recently, the number of people seeking methadone treatment has increased
dramatically at the Connecticut Counseling Centers.

The centers - in operation since 1985 - have typically treated about 100
heroin addicts at a time. But in the past two years, that number has more
than doubled, with about 250 being treated today, Lambert said.

At the centers' clinic in Waterbury, the number of heroin addicts it treats
skyrocketed from about 150 in 1998 to more than 800 today, he said. The
number was so much higher at the Waterbury facility, he said, because it
serves the entire Waterbury area as well as the Naugatuck Valley, including
Shelton and towns in its vicinity.

The Regional Network of Programs, based in Bridgeport, said the percentage
of its clients who abuse cocaine declined from 18 percent to 4 percent over
the past five years, while the percentage of those seeking help for heroin
addiction jumped from 45 percent to 56 percent. The agency had 1,200
clients in 1993-94, compared with about 1,450 in 1998-99.

The Norwalk and Waterbury centers, like the Regional Network of Programs,
are among several facilities offering methadone treatment and counseling to
help addicts cope with physical and mental problems from ceasing heroin use.

All in all, the DEA says, there are about 2.3 million known heroin users in
the nation of 270 million people, although the agency says the number is
likely underestimated.

Heroin: more pure, chic

The DEA and local law-enforcement agencies attribute the drug's renewed
popularity to the purity of the drug now available through Colombian sources.

The purity level has risen from about 8 to 10 percent in the 1980s to
anywhere from 35 to 95 percent today.

"People are now able to smoke, snort or swallow the heroin because of its
increased purity, taking away the stigma of a needle," said State Police
Capt. Peter Warren, head of the Statewide Narcotics Task Force.

However, the DEA and drug counselors say that how the drug has been
portrayed in recent years has also played a part.

The DEA, in a report to Congress in 1998, said, "The fashion industry has
glamorized heroin use by promoting the physical attributes of heroin
addicts - thin frame, sunken eyes, and pallid skin. That phenomenon,
coupled with a rising number of music and film celebrities [such as Kurt
Cobain and Robert Downey Jr.] identified as heroin addicts has led to a
growth in involvement with the drug in the general population."

The agency estimated that about 140,000 people started using heroin in 1999
and another 150,000 are expected to try it for the first time this year.

The ugly truth

Although there are no statistics to determine the exact number of heroin
overdoses, state health officials said most of the overdoses from opiates -
including morphine, opium and heroin - were from heroin.

Forty confirmed opiate overdoses occurred in Connecticut in 1996. By 1997,
that number had jumped to 70 and, by 1998, the last year for which
statistics are available, it was 75.

Figures on heroin overdoses in the region are not available, though some
hospital officials and drug counselors in the region say they've noticed an
increase - even in the wealthiest suburbs.

"There've been overdoses in these communities - and probably more than we
realize. Much of it, I believe, is covered up," said Hamilton of LM&G Programs.

Heroin use may initially bring a sense of well-being and invincibility. But
users need an increasing amount of the drug to continue to experience these
sensations. In the course of events, their brain chemistry is altered and
they become dependent on the drug for normal functioning, according to experts.

Addicts experience clouded thinking, nausea, suppression of normal feeling
and pain, collapsed veins, arthritis, infections and organ damage from
materials used to cut the drug's potency, experts say.

And they often spend each day working or committing crimes just to get
money to afford enough heroin to avoid withdrawal.

Methadone maintenance

To cope with those problems and to avoid going back to heroin, a person may
need to rely on methadone therapy and counseling for short or long periods,
depending on the length of their addiction.

Kurt Kemmling, who heads the Connecticut Chapter of the National Alliance
of Methadone Advocates, said people should not get the idea that former
heroin addicts using methadone have traded one addiction for another.

"Methadone is a medication for people who have been addicted to heroin, not
a substitute for heroin," Kemmling said. "Methadone allows people to lead
normal and productive lives, while it helps them cope with chemical
imbalances that were created by their addiction."

Kemmling said his organization is supporting new federal drug legislation
that would allow physicians to prescribe methadone for heroin addicts,
thereby recognizing their addiction as a medical problem.

He said the new provisions would help find treatment for addicts who would
otherwise be denied it because of the limited capacity of current programs.

"When people need help, they should get it. No one should be turned away,"
Kemmling said.

Leigh, a 23-year-old Fairfield addict who started attending a methadone
program in December, said methadone has cut her craving for heroin altogether.

"If I wasn't on it, I'd still be using," she said.

Police face fallout

The connection between heroin use and crimes is evident, police said.

Capt. Frank Resta, commander of the Bridgeport Police Department's
Narcotics and Vice Division, asserted the root of a large percentage of
crime lies in drug addiction and trafficking.

Burglaries, robberies and shoplifting are some of the crimes police deal
with that may be drug related. But many shootings and homicides also stem
from the drug trade, the captain said.

With heroin use on the rise, law-enforcement agencies have been busy trying
to keep up.

"We've seen a fairly strong resurgence in heroin in the New Haven and
Bridgeport areas," said Warren, of the Statewide Narcotics Task Force.
"Crack cocaine and marijuana are still keeping us very busy. I don't know
if they'll ever go away."

Warren noted the task force has made significant seizures of heroin in the
Bridgeport and New Haven areas recently.

The task force, through its five regional organizations, seized 2.48
kilograms of heroin in the 1998-99 fiscal year, up from 1.3 kilograms in
the previous year. At the same time, crack cocaine seizures fell from
nearly 6 to about 2.7 kilograms, while other forms of cocaine seized
declined from 29.43 to 14.12 kilograms.

The task force's annual report notes that heroin is "readily available" on
the streets, particularly in housing projects in Bridgeport, Norwalk and
Stamford. "The users from suburban communities use suppliers that work off
pagers and deliver to locations near the suburban town lines. This is a
growing trend in that users don't want to go to the projects for safety
reasons," Warren said.

Regarding drug problems in the Naugatuck Valley, Detective Sgt. Joseph
Kudrack, of the Shelton police and part-time commander of the Valley Street
Crime Unit, said, "Heroin is making a comeback, but crack cocaine and
marijuana are still drugs of choice."

The Bridgeport area's growing problem with heroin addiction is reflected in
an increase in seizures of the substance compared with other drugs over the
past two years, Resta said.

Anthony Belovich, resident agent in charge of the Bridgeport office of the
DEA, said his agency has been dealing with an increase in heroin imported
from Colombia and Southeast Asia.

"Most of the heroin we see comes out of New York City. It is sent by bulk
dealers in the Bronx and Queens to mid-level distributors here," Belovich said.

However, heroin is sometimes sent in bulk directly to Connecticut and then
brought to New York City, where it is broken down for distribution. Its
shippers fear the package will be intercepted if brought directly to New
York, Belovich said.

Then from New York, a large portion of heroin comes through Bridgeport.
Belovich said Bridgeport has become a center for heroin dealing for a
number of reasons, mainly that it's a fairly large city near New York and
on the Interstate 95 corridor.

Joel C. Thompson, who covers law enforcement issues, can be reached at
330-6377.

Staff writer Lisa Hurt contributed to this report.