HEROIN OVERDOSE DEATHS RISE

Factory-direct drug shipments from Mexico are bringing more powerful
and less-expensive loads of heroin into Salt Lake County, resulting in
a sixfold increase in overdose deaths in recent years.

Local drug enforcement officials and substance abuse counselors blame
the rise on a more availability of heroin that is more potent, as well
as its highly addictive qualities, which result in an increasing
tolerance and require the user to need greater amounts to get high.

"We have had a large increase of overdose deaths over the last eight
years, primarily heroin, often in combination with cocaine," said
Robert Rolfs, director of the Office of Public Health Data at the Utah
Department of Health. "Amphetamine deaths have increased as well, but
represented a small portion of all deaths . . . about 15 percent."

The number of heroin deaths increased from 20 in 1991 to 130 in 1998,
the latest year for which statistics are available.

Ninety percent of the deaths in 1998 were victims between the ages of
25 and 49. In that age group, illicit drug overdose was the fourth
leading cause of death, about the same number as in motor vehicle
crashes. Eighty percent of the victims were men; 97 percent were Utah
residents and 75 percent died in Salt Lake County; 84 percent were

Anglo, 12 percent Latino. Seventy-six percent of the victims had at
least a high school education.

"We don't know for sure, but an increase and variability in the
strength of the heroin available is a possible reason," Rolfs said.
"An increase in the number of persons using these drugs could also

cause a trend like this."

Don Mendrala, resident agent for the federal Drug Enforcement Agency
in Salt Lake City and the Metro Narcotics Task Force, said heroin
seizures by law enforcement officers increased every quarter last year
and they expect the trend will continue this year.

That's because Mexican dealers over the past few years have
gotten heavily into heroin trafficking after spending several years growing
the plants from which heroin is harvested, he said.

"Years ago the heroin used to come from Mexico and the East and
it

would go through multiple middlemen and everyone that touches it
generally cuts it," he said, reducing its potency but keeping the
price per gram, pound or kilo the same.

"What we've experienced in the past three years is the middlemen have
been eliminated," Mendrala continued. "The heroin is now going right
from the source to the user and it's not getting cut." So users used
to a 2 to 5 percent potency are now injecting heroin that is 8 to10
percent pure.

"Now we're seeing a glut of heroin so as a rule, the price is going to
go down and the purity is going to go up and the overdoses are a
result of that."

He said it takes seven seconds to kill a person who has overdosed on
heroin, "so literally they don't even get the needle out of their
arm." Because heroin, like morphine and opium, is a depressant,
injecting too much causes the body's cardiopulmonary system -- the
heart and lungs -- to shut down. Pumping the person with drugs like
Narcan, called a "narcotic antagonist", or glucose or vitamin B can
reverse the process as can CPR, "but you don't have a lot of time to
mess around," Mendrala said.

Garison Jeppesen, a social worker at the Neuropsychiatric Institute
who counsels teens with substance abuse problems, say his patients,
who range from 13 to 19 years of age, "report heroin is cheaper and
easier to get now a days, it's more prevalent and is more intense in
its effects." It is also extremely hard to quit. "That's because of
its addictive propensities and it doesn't take a long duration of use
for a person to form an addiction and it can happen with one or two or
three doses," Jeppesen said. "The person then finds him or herself in
a pretty difficult position to discontinue use after that point."

So what's the answer? Going after the big dealers, according to
Mendrala, of the drug task force, and more and better substance abuse
prevention and treatment, according to Rolfs of the state health department.

"We also need to educate users about risks and how to avoid overdose,
HIV and other infections until they can get off drugs," Rolfs said.