HEROIN'S PROFILE IN MISS. GROWING

Despite reports showing few heroin arrests in Mississippi, the recent
breakup of a heroin distribution ring in rural Madison County suggests use
of the drug is much more widespread than realized.

"From past experience, when we begin to find and make those arrests, the
incidences (of use) are much higher than what we know," said June Milam,
executive director of DREAM Inc., a Jackson-based nonprofit organization
formed to promote grassroots, community-based prevention.

Trost Friedler, the executive director of Harbor House, a treatment center
for drug and alcohol abuse, said he's not surprised by the find.

"If you look statistically at other parts of the country, heroin use has
surpassed crack cocaine as the drug of choice," he said.

"I expect that number (of heroin arrests) to increase significantly over
the next number of years," Friedler said.

On Jan. 20, Madison County sheriff's deputies and the Mississippi Bureau of
Narcotics raided the home of Cassandra Carter, 21, in Sharon and charged
her with two counts of sale of heroin.

Authorities say they discovered 33 dosage units of heroin wrapped in
aluminum foil valued at about $700, along with a large uncut bag of heroin
worth between $12,000 and $14,000. An unspecified amount of marijuana and
Valium and $650 were also seized.

Milam and Friedler say they expect their treatment centers to be
overwhelmed as heroin use balloons.

They have only to look at the explosion of crystal methamphetamine in
Mississippi to see heroin's potential.

State and local law officers found more than 150 methamphetamine
manufacturing labs in 40 of 82 Mississippi counties last year, said Maj.
Faron Gardner, in charge of the analytical and intelligence unit of the
Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics. That compares with 38 labs seized in 1998
and one in 1997.

Mississippi was late following the national explosion of crystal meth. And
officials at drug treatment centers say the same could happen with heroin.

"We are starting to see a trickle, not a mad overflow," said Willie Carter,
program director for Harbor House. "It is here. I've had lots of mentions
of it through clients."

Sheriff's deputies suspect Carter had been in operation about six months
and was in the process of setting up a heroin distribution ring.

"We haven't had any heroin in this area, all through the 1990s, up until a
year ago," said Jim Marlett, chief of narcotics for the Madison County
Sheriff's Department. "Over a period of (the last) four months, we have had
four heroin busts in Madison County."

In fact, Marlett said, some of his younger officers didn't even realize
what they were seeing.

They had read about it, but because it had never come up before, they
didn't know it when they first saw it.

Marlett suspects the heroin is being shipped down from the north -- possibl
y
Detroit or Chicago.

After hearing about the Madison County operation, officials began their
undercover work.

"Hopefully, we got it in time. There is still some looming around, but it's
not an epidemic," Marlett said.

Statewide, few heroin arrests have been reported.

Looking at his records from 1996 to present, Gardner said the Mississippi
Bureau of Narcotics has recorded no heroin arrests by that agency.
Gardner's department serves as the clearinghouse for drug information from
city and county departments. But not all information is necessarily shared,
he says.

Charlie Brown Jr., assistant special agent in charge of the Drug
Enforcement Administration in Mississippi, reports the last major heroin
arrest was made in Meridian in November 1998. A kilo of heroin, being
transported through Mississippi to another state, was confiscated.

Outside of some arrests on the Gulf Coast, Brown said, his agency has no
reports of heroin arrests in north or central Mississippi.

Authorities cannot positively identify the substance confiscated in Sharon
as heroin until results come back from the state Crime Lab, Gardner said.

And a backup at the Crime Lab could delay getting those results, he said.

Statewide, heroin use barely makes a blip on the statistical charts, said
Herbert Loving, director of the Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse for the
state Department of Mental Health. Statistical evidence for 1998 shows of
the 7,963 admissions made for drug abuse in the state, 65 were for
treatment of heroin addiction.

The Department of Health recorded eight deaths related to accidental
poisoning from opiates or related narcotics between 1994-98, with no deaths
recorded in 1997.

"If you have 65 people out of 8,000, that hardly seems like we really have
a problem," Loving said. "Sixty-five said, 'My drug of choice is heroin.' "

Cautions Milam: "Don't let the low number fool you. Just be vigilant."

Like the explosion of crystal methamphetamine in Mississippi, heroin use
nationwide has more than doubled in five years, according to the latest
statistics posted by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. In 1998,
130,000 used the drug compared with 68,000 in 1993, figures show.

As usage has gone up, the average age for first-time heroin usage has
declined. The average age for first-time heroin users was 17.6 years in
1997 compared with 26.4 years recorded in 1990, according to DEA figures.

"There is a certain rebelliousness with youth," said Tom Kepner, director
of operations for COPAC, a nationwide extended residential care treatment
service with a facility in Brandon. "Heroin has a certain (tough) mystique
about it. It is the king of drugs."

Heroin is being marketed by drug dealers who are seeing sales of crack
cocaine decline, Kepner said

With people tiring of crack, heroin is fast being ferried by the
Colombian-Mexican connections, he said.

"Typically, they start smoking it," Kepner said. "Look at Plano, Texas.
Upper middle-class white children (are being targeted, with heroin)."

To get kids started, the drug is packed in small, smokable bundles, Kepner
said. After they have smoked it for a while, users gradually begin snorting
it, then injecting it directly into the bloodstream. Injection allows the
drug to reach the brain much faster and is absorbed in 15-30 seconds,
according to the National Institute of Drug Awareness.

Kepner warns the drug today is more potent than in the past. But despite
its potency, addiction is treatable through structured withdrawal, therapy
and a 12-step program, Kepner said.

"Every generation rediscovers drugs," he said. "No one starts out trying to
get addicted."

There are a variety of factors that come into play, including environment,
stress, family rituals, peer pressure and genetic disposition.

"We look back two generations," he said.

Treatment for addictions to heroin and other opiates between 1992-97 rose
by 29 percent from 180,000 to 232,000, Friedler said, pointing to a
published news account that hangs on his wall.

That compares with cocaine use, which declined 17 percent from 267,000 to
222,000 during the same time period, that report said.