FOR LIZ, A HEROIN USER, TIME IS RUNNING OUT

The second most important thing on Liz's mind these days is watches. Timex,
Rolex, Seiko. Any of them will do because they are a hot black-market
commodity.

If she can find the opportunity to steal one, she'll get the cash for
something she craves much more than a watch: heroin.

Because she needs a minimum of $60 for a gram of the black tar, a nice Seiko
stolen from a store and sold on the street will get her through the day. If
her dealer is agreeable, she may be able to trade it straight for a few
grams.

Afterwards, she'll find a hideout, like a restaurant bathroom. She'll mix a
gram with a few drops of water, boil it into a brown-sugary liquid in a tiny
tin container or spoon with a cigarette lighter and inject it into her
veins.

Life, as this 44-year-old lives it, is a perpetual, anxiety-ridden struggle
in which the need for food, clothing and shelter is entirely secondary to
the question of how she will come up with her next fix.

It's a lifestyle both tragic and common, one that health officials say Liz
shares with an estimated 15,000 other people in King County, according to
Dr. Henry Zieglar head of the prevention division of the Seattle-King County
Health Department.

"It's horrible," Liz said. "You're constantly thinking about where your next
hit is going to come from. It totally controls your life."

The number of heroin-overdose deaths in King County climbed to a record 144
last year - triple the number in 1990.

There have been a number of recent overdose deaths in Yakima and Richland,
too. Police in all three jurisdictions have the same explanation: heroin of
unusual purity.

Health authorities have asked the Metropolitan King County County Council to
make methadone and treatment available to hundreds of addicts waiting for
it.

Council staff members are examining a unanimous request from the King County
Board of Health to increase the number of licensed clinics that provide
addicts with methadone, a synthetic narcotic that relieves craving for
heroin but does not cause the same high. It enables patients to work and
lead a more normal life.

A council vote to authorize new centers may not happen until fall, after
more discussion of what steps are possible, Zieglar said.

At least 450 addicts are on waiting lists to get into the five centers now
treating 1,750 patients, health experts say.

In addition to the harm heroin does to those who use it, society also is at
risk.

More than 80 percent of King County heroin addicts are infected with
hepatitis C and about 4 percent carry the AIDS virus. In Vancouver, B.C., up
to 23 percent have HIV, which often is spread by sharing needles.

`Boosting' the crime rate

Drug addicts also contribute markedly to a community's crime problem.

Even among addicts who have jobs, the expense of keeping up with a
$150-a-day habit is a struggle. Many turn to shoplifting; others to burglary
or robbery.

About 60 percent of the County Jail inmates are serving time for
drug-related crimes.

"We call them boosters," said King County Sheriff's Office spokesman John
Urquhart. "They steal all day long."

Clothes or jewelry can be sold to fences, people who buy the stolen
merchandise and then sell it to someone else.

Urquhart said heroin addicts, for the most part, also resort to other
low-risk crimes, such as mail theft.

"I can say that almost everything a police officer does is directly or
indirectly related to drugs or alcohol," Urquhart said.

Police officers say they can spot a heroin addict easily. Like Liz and many
others visiting the King County's needle exchange in downtown Seattle, they
usually appear frail but move at a frenzied pace as if their minds are
always racing.

"If they are arrested for shoplifting, they will beg - and I mean beg - not
to go to jail," Urquhart said. "If they do go, they know they won't get
their heroin, and they know they will be absolutely miserable in jail."

Street heroin more potent

The "black tar" heroin available on Seattle streets these days is cheaper
and stronger than just a few years ago - a key reason for the increase in
fatalities, Urquhart and Zieglar say.

"It is an insidious addiction" Urquhart said. "You use a few times, and you
don't realize what's happening. Next thing you know, you're hooked, and you
can't get rid of it."

That's something Liz knows well. She got hooked five years ago while living
in Spokane.

She remembers vividly the day she started using after being addicted to
painkillers, prescribed to her after a hysterectomy in 1987. After tiring of
the cheating and lying to get the painkillers - and getting a shorter and
shallower high - Liz was ready for a new drug.

"I was at a friend's house, and he said he was making himself a hit, and I
said I'd try just a little, and I stuck my arm out," Liz said.

"And it was this amazing feeling, like I didn't have a care in the world,"
Liz said. "Everything was numb."

That feeling of euphoria lasted about two or three hours.

"I was on top of the world," she said.

But by 3 a.m., it all came crashing down.

"I woke up with the worst migraine in my life," she said. "The headache was
excruciating. I had a stomach ache and was throwing up. It was terrible."

She told herself she'd never do heroin again, but three days later, she
found herself back at her friend's house. This time, the hit cost her $15
for a quarter gram. Within a month, she knew she was hooked.

No turning back

Eventually, Liz found herself using more and more. A year after she started,
she was using every day, sometimes twice a day. Sometimes, she added
cocaine, a combination called a "speedball."

Now she has the cooking method of heroin down to a routine that takes less
than 10 minutes. Everything she needs, "her rig," she picks up at the needle
exchange, where she goes everyday.

There, they have needles, rubbing alcohol for her skin where she will inject
the needle, cotton balls, small vials for the water, tiny aluminum cups to
cook the drug, and even a rubber fastener to tie around the arm.

King County's needle exchange dispersed 1.7 million syringes last year.
Although critics balk at the idea of helping addicts get their hits,
defenders say the program is invaluable because it focuses on health and
safety. In 1997, the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health spent
$475,000 to exchange sterile needles for used ones.

Over the years, Liz has grown frail - at 5 feet, 2 inches, she's just 115
pounds. A quarter gram is just not enough. A gram gets her a good fix.

"At my worst, I've been where I was feeling so bad that I could hardly walk,
but I still went out and boosted because I needed it," she said.

`I'd rather die'

At Liz's core, to the observant eye, are glimpses of the person she once
was. She says she feels like she fell into a hole and can't climb out. The
thought of her four daughters, ages 14 to 25, reduces her to tears. She
still hopes she'll return to them in Spokane.

About two weeks ago, Liz said she had started using methadone. Things are
going well - she said she's down to shooting up once every other day.

"I'd rather die than go through what I've been going through again," Liz
said. "There was a time that it used to be fun. It used to be nice. But, now
it's become the worst hell you can imagine. It's like trying to describe
your worst nightmare. How can you put that into words?"

Arthur Santana's phone message number is 206-515-5684.