MARCIA HOOD-BROWN

1983 - Graduates from Jefferson High School

1991 - Wins fellowship to Brandeis University

1993 - Starts teaching at Portland State University

1997 - Awarded doctorate from Brandeis

1999 - Dies of heroin overdose at age 33

In the fall of 1997, Marcia Hood-Brown had the world on a string. She had
just finished her doctorate in sociology from Brandeis University. She was
respected, even revered, by her students at Portland State University. She
had landed a coveted postdoctoral position doing research for the federal
government. She was a brilliant scholar, an eloquent writer and a beautiful
woman.

She was also a junkie.

Last month, at the age of 33, Marcia died of a heroin overdose. There were
no needle marks on her arms, no syringes in her purse - just a couple of
baggies in the kitchen trash containing a few telltale crumbs of brownish
powder.

The news of Marcia's demise reverberated through Portland like a
thunderbolt. "This came as a terrible shot out of the blue," says her
mother, Elaine Fleskes. "I wouldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. I
thought it was a mistake. It had to be a mistake."

Without question, Marcia's death is an extraordinary tragedy. Sadly, it is
by no means unique. Across the nation, heroin overdoses are increasing at
an alarming rate. In Multnomah County alone, heroin deaths more than
tripled, from 33 in 1989 to 102 last year. In the past four months, the
number of deaths surged another 60 percent. If the present trend continues,
160 Portlanders will die of a heroin overdose by the year's end.

"How can we allow this to go on?" asks Richard Harris, executive director
of Central City Concern, a local nonprofit agency that operates the Hooper
Detoxification clinic. "It's an outrage."

Researchers, treatment providers and law-enforcement agents say that
cheaper, more potent heroin is seducing a whole new generation of users,
many of whom get hooked by smoking or snorting the drug. In addition, they
say, heroin addiction is increasingly reaching into the ranks of the
affluent and the well-educated.

"We hold an image in our minds of the heroin addict as a sort of monster.
We want to believe they are out-of-control, unhealthy, grotesque people,"
says Harris. "It just isn't the case. The drug does not respect economic
barriers."

"We've got a heroin epidemic in this valley," says Dr. Walton Byrd, the
medical director of Allied Health Service, a local methadone clinic.

It would be foolish to pretend that the life of Marcia Hood-Brown fits
neatly into any demographer's pigeonhole. But her death raises a profound
and disturbing question: How did this brilliant social researcher, a woman
who had dedicated her career to working with troubled women, succumb to an
addiction whose consequences she had witnessed and analyzed in the charts
and footnotes of a dozen academic papers? And having fallen into the jaws
of the drug, why couldn't she find a way out?

Marcia always had an independent spirit. "She knew her mind, and she knew
what she wanted to do, and she did it," her mother says. Born in 1966 in a
tiny coal-mining town on the edge of the Kansas prairie, she grew up in the
rural Oregon community of Parrett Mountain, near Wilsonville. Her mother
was an artist, and her stepfather worked in construction. In 1970, they
built a house on five acres of woods and meadows, without plumbing,
electricity or heat. That first winter, they slept huddled in sleeping bags
around a wood stove.

A precocious girl, Marcia took care of her younger brother from an early
age. She loved to explore the woods and hunt for mice and lizards. She
showed sheep for 4-H and played sax in the school band.

In the recession of the early '80s, the construction business collapsed
and, with it, her parents' relationship. At the age of 16, Marcia moved
into an apartment in Northwest Portland with her mother.

For Marcia, the city represented an intoxicating antidote to the
parochialism of Parrett Mountain. The year was 1982, and children of the
hippie generation had finally found an identity to call their own. Across
the nation, a defiant sound - punk - was smashing through the complacent
disco and bubble-gum rock that dominated the airwaves. Punk had energy,
attitude and shock value. Most of all, it belonged to them.

Overnight, Marcia's dark brown curls, headband, sweatshirt and jeans were
replaced by a new look: raven-black hair, a black velvet dress, black
leggings, combat boots, white face, cat's eyes and bright red lipstick. She
wheeled around on a vintage red bike adorned with plastic flowers, and
later in a '60s-era Ford Fairlane. She grew dreadlocks and became a fixture
in the local music scene. "She was the Gothic queen of Portland," says Lisa
Friedli-Clapie, a close friend who teaches French at Portland State. "She
was the coolest," agrees Fiona Ortiz, another good friend who now works as
a reporter in Mexico.

Marcia was cool, but she was no nihilist. An excellent student, she
graduated from Jefferson High School at the age of 17 and worked her way
through college, first at Portland Community College and later at PSU,
graduating with a degree in sociology in 1989. She also became active in
women's issues, volunteering as a counselor at the Council for Prostitution
Alternatives and at the Portland Feminist Women's Health Center, where she
held women's hands while they underwent abortion surgery. "I was proud of
her," her mother says. "She was my little fighter."

In 1990, Marcia married Aaron Brown, a graphic-design student at Pacific
Northwest College of Art; they held the wedding outside a stone house in
MacLeay Park. The next year, she won a prestigious fellowship at Brandeis.
Returning to Portland in 1993, she taught classes in sociology and women's
studies at PSU while writing a dissertation on treatment programs for
drug-addicted prostitutes.

Her former students describe her in glowing terms. "I just thought she was
brilliant," says Kristin Christopherson. "She inspired me to go to grad
school."

Marcia also encouraged several friends to complete their education. "She's
one of the reasons I went back to college," says Brian Tibbetts, who is now
studying English at PSU. "She believed in me more than I believed in myself."

While many of her friends settled into more conventional lifestyles, Marcia
remained resolutely cutting-edge. "She didn't want to be a housewife," says
her friend Lisa. "She didn't want to be part of the mainstream."

She loved to organize fancy cocktail parties and sumptuous vegetarian
feasts at her apartment on Northeast 7th and Knott and often patronized her
favorite bar, the Sandy Hut.

In March 1997, she finished her dissertation and was awarded her doctorate
from Brandeis. But even as she scaled new heights in her professional
career, Marcia struggled with personal demons. Her marriage was falling
apart. She had been rejected for tenure-track positions at several
top-flight schools. Years of graduate education had left her thousands of
dollars in debt. She began to have panic attacks and suffered bouts of
depression. She even began to question the value of her own degree. After a
10-year hiatus, she started smoking again.

One night during the summer of 1997, Marcia sat around with an old friend
from her punk days, who was working as a systems administrator. He was
depressed. "I had tons of money and no life," says the friend, who is now
undergoing drug treatment."I kind of wanted to throw a monkey-wrench into
it." Almost jokingly, he confessed that he was so unhappy he was thinking
about trying heroin.

Marcia didn't laugh. On the contrary, she seemed intrigued. In fact, she
said she knew where she could get the drug. "I said, 'I'll buy if you
fly,'" he remembers. He gave her $20.

The next night, Marcia came over to his downtown apartment. She was
carrying a little plastic bag containing a tiny blob of black goo. They
spread it out on a scrap of tin foil, then took turns holding a lighter
under the foil until the drug bubbled and gave off a thick white smoke.

A few days later, they did it again.

Heroin has always held a perverse fascination for people on the fringes of
society. Because of its association with tragic icons from Janis Joplin to
Kurt Cobain, the drug also attracts rebellious youths searching for a way
to set themselves apart from the mainstream they despise.

Like many young adults (including this reporter), Marcia dabbled with hard
drugs in her 20s but escaped serious harm. By the time she was 31, she
certainly knew the downside. She had seen friends spiral into the vortex of
addiction. She had witnessed firsthand the ravages of heroin in the faces
and the stories of the prostitutes she counseled at the CPA. She was
"highly contemptuous" of hip junkiedom, according to her friend Fiona.

Why did Marcia take that first hit? It is, of course, impossible to
reconstruct her thoughts. Perhaps she believed her exceptional intellect
would protect her from harm. She had, in fact, written her dissertation on
the social, economic and sexual dynamics of drug addiction. Perhaps she
wanted to transgress the boundary between researcher and subject, to cut
through the dry formulations of academic sociology and show those tenured
Ivy League squares that she knew what she was talking about. Perhaps she
simply wanted a vacation from reality.

"She was a little bored with her life," says her anonymous friend. "I don't
believe either of us wanted to grow up."

Whatever the reason, she took the plunge. As the acrid smoke filled her
lungs, all Marcia's anxieties - the crumbling marriage, the unpaid bills,
the rejection letters - were swallowed by a sinister wave of euphoria.

Marcia's descent into addiction followed a classic progression. She was
careful, almost obsessive, about keeping her friends ignorant of her little
secret and continued to maintain a respectable facade at PSU, where she
taught class three times a week. "I didn't notice any significant change in
her at all," says former student Christopherson.

Indeed, during this time she was recruited by the National Development and
Research Institutes of New York City. The organization offered her a
postdoctoral position doing research on female methamphetamine addicts.
"She impressed me as someone who was knowledgeable and thoughtful," says
her boss, Dr. Greg Falkin. She even continued her volunteer counseling work
at the Council for Prostitution Alternatives.

But little by little, like a meteor trapped in the gravitational warp of a
black hole, Marcia's life began to revolve around heroin. By the fall of
1997, she was using it every day. In the evening, she would go over to a
friend's house to buy the drug: $30 for a lump the size of a pencil eraser
- - just enough to get her high for the night, plus a little taste for the
morning after.

At first, the changes were subtle. The parties and dinners tapered off.
Dishes piled up in the sink. "She started staying in bed a lot," says
former roommate J.R. Pella. "I just assumed she was partying."

With her research position in New York due to begin in January, Marcia quit
teaching at PSU. The loss of structure in her life seemed to accelerate her
slide. People around her noticed other mystifying changes. She became
obsessed with her personal appearance. She complained about money. She
imposed on her friends. "She wasn't the same damn person," says Lisa.

Marcia struggled to break free. Several times that fall she tried to kick
the habit, lying in bed, sweating and moaning, gritting her teeth to stave
off the cravings for another hour. She would last a few days, a week
perhaps. Then her self-control would crack; the expert on treatment
modalities would pick up the phone and call her dealer.

Pharmacologically speaking, heroin is a sledgehammer. Smoked, snorted or
injected, it depresses the central nervous system and triggers a cascade of
endorphins in the brain, producing an intense high that can linger for
hours. "Heroin is the atomic bomb of opiates," says Dr. Byrd. "It's a
nightmare."

As the user turns to the drug more often, the brain begins to compensate,
shutting down its natural endorphin production. Gradually, the pleasure
system withers, like an atrophied muscle, and the user becomes unable to
enjoy anything except heroin.

Contrary to popular myth, addiction is a gradual process. Depending on the
purity of the drug and the frequency of use, it may take several months to
produce acute dependence. But the longer it goes on, the harder it is to
stop. "Every addict says, 'I can control the drug,'" Harris says. "And then
one day they find the drug controlling them."

In January 1998, Marcia moved to New York. If she had ever believed that
geography would cure her addiction, she quickly discovered otherwise. As
the drug's grip grew tighter, she flew back to Portland every few months,
ostensibly to conduct research. In reality, she was trying to kick the habit.

Ever secretive, Marcia hid her addiction from her friends and family - she
would tell them she was sick with the flu - and the people close to her
remained, for the most part, in the dark. "I was totally oblivious," says J.R.

Lisa had no idea what was wrong until last summer, when Marcia was visiting
Portland and asked her to help organize a yard sale. By the end of the day,
Marcia had raised $250. Then she asked Lisa to take some vintage dresses
over to a resale store and pick up some hair conditioner from Freddie's.
Coming on the heels of a long list of favors, the request stuck in Lisa's
craw. "I knew she was taking advantage of me," she says. "But I thought she
was sick."

After Lisa returned from her errand, she discovered that Marcia had left.
When Marcia came home, Lisa was furious. As she remembers, the conversation
went like this:

"What the hell is up?" she said. "Why couldn't you wait?"

"It's no big deal," Marcia replied, her voice sleepy and hoarse. "We just
went to Taco Bell."

"Taco Bell?! You don't even like Taco Bell!"

"Well, I like it now."

Marcia could hardly keep her eyes open. In fact, she was falling asleep on
her feet. Suddenly, it all made sense - the midnight phone calls, the
endless flu, the debts - and Lisa realized her friend was doing heroin. "I
didn't know you could buy that at Taco Bell," she said.

There was an awkward silence. "Lisa, I can take care of myself," Marcia
said. "I've got it under control."

Lisa burst into tears.

In October, Summer Gunter, a 26-year-old artist, took the train from
Portland to New York to join Marcia in her Brooklyn apartment. Summer had
known Marcia for five years. Although Summer had heard rumors about
Marcia's drug use, Marcia assured her that she had quit for good. "She told
me, 'Everything will be so wonderful when you get here. We'll go out every
night. It will be fabulous.'"

When they met up at the train station, Summer was shocked. Marcia looked
old. The vintage dresses had given way to ratty jeans, the glorious
dreadlocks to shapeless fuzz. She was short-tempered and rude - "a side of
her I'd never seen before," Summer says. In the cab on the way back to the
apartment, Marcia started weeping for no apparent reason.

Over the next few months her behavior became increasingly erratic. She
racked up thousands of dollars in credit-card debts and phone bills. She
adopted the name Zuleika, took out personal ads in The Village Voice and
went on frequent dates. She stayed up all night, using heroin, smoking
cigarettes and writing sad poems.

Marcia tried desperately to get clean. Summer would hold her hand as she
lay on the couch, unable to move. "I'd tell her, 'This is it - this is the
last time you have to do this,'" Summer remembers. Marcia tried to enter a
residential treatment program, but her insurance covered only outpatient
treatment. It wasn't enough. She would get clean for a few days or weeks,
then drift back to the dope. "She thought she was too smart to get hooked,"
Summer says. "She thought she could handle the drug. But no one can."

Despite all she'd been through, Marcia seemed unwilling to acknowledge the
depth of her problem. In an e-mail to her friend Fiona, sent in October or
November of last year, she recited a long litany of reasons for her
"cracking up," including debts, the breakup of her marriage, the stress of
moving to New York, physical illness and, almost as an afterthought, her
addiction to heroin.

One Saturday morning last month, as Summer was getting ready to leave the
apartment, she noticed that Marcia had fallen asleep on the couch, curled
up next to the telephone. It was not an unusual sight. "She'd done that
before," says Summer. "It didn't surprise me." When Summer got back to the
apartment that evening, Marcia was still asleep. But there was something
wrong: Marcia was in exactly the same position as before, and her skin was
gray.

"I kind of just stared at her," Summer says. "I couldn't believe it. Her
head was next to the phone, and I couldn't see her face. I thought, 'Well,
maybe she's suffocating.'"

Summer pulled the phone away from Marcia's head just a little bit. There
was an indentation along Marcia's face where the phone had been. She was dead.

Many of Marcia's friends are asking themselves how they could have ignored
her problem for so long - or why they didn't express their disapproval more
strongly when they found out. "I'm really pissed off at myself," Lisa says.

"I look back, and I kick myself for not realizing," says J.R.

Marcia was buried in Skyline Memorial Gardens, in a sloping cemetery
overlooking the city she had called home. Her mother bought the burial plot
next to hers. "I just wanted people who walk past to know she's not alone,"
she says. "I hope I go to the same heaven."

As Marcia's body was lowered into the ground and the first handful of dirt
hit the casket, her friends realized she had been gone a long, long time.

[sidebar:]

HEROIN BY THE NUMBERS

Portland has one of the highest rates in the nation for the number of
arrestees who test positive for opiates, according to the National
Institute of Justice. Last year, 16 percent of adult males booked into
Multnomah County Jail tested positive for opiates; for adult women,
the rate was 25 percent - the highest in the nation.

Percentage of male arrestees testing positive for opiates in
1998:

Philadelphia 18%
Chicago 18%
Seattle 17%
Portland 16%
New York 16%
New Orleans 13%
St. Louis 11%
Laredo 11%

ALCOHOL AND DRUG HELPLINE
244-1312

ALCOHOL AND DRUG YOUTH LINE
244-1611

NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS
284-1787

NARCOTICS ABUSE 24-HOUR HELPLINE
(800) 234-0420

PORTLAND WOMEN'S CRISIS LINE
235-5333

According to a 1997 telephone survey conducted by the state Office of
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs, 4.6 percent of the respondents in
Multnomah County admitted using heroin at some point in their lives.

If the figure from the state survey is accurate - and it's worth
remembering that a lot of junkies don't have telephones - it suggests
that at least 29,000 Portlanders have used heroin.

According to OADAP, heroin was cited as a "primary drug of choice" by
3,629 Multnomah County adults last year - a jump of 479 percent from
1988.

Former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman Mark Tuinei died of an
overdose earlier this month after taking a combination of heroin and a
stimulant. He was 39 years old.

Fiona Ortiz wrote for WW from 1990-94 under her maiden name, Fiona
Martin.

[sidebar:]

DEATHS FROM HEROIN OVERDOSE IN MULTNOMAH COUNTY

[Graph represented here by text]

1989 33
1990 40
1991 10
1992 31
1993 49
1994 69
1995 76
1996 94
1997 97
1998 102
1999* 162

* Projected figure
Source: Multnomah County Medical Examiner's Office