HEROIN USE IS UNABATED, REPORT SAYS

NEW YORK -- Heroin use in New York City remains high, with more young people
trying heroin and more users now snorting the drug than injecting it, often
under the misconception that snorting will not lead to addiction, according
to a new report on drug trends released Tuesday.

Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the White House's director of national drug control
policy, visited St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center on Manhattan's West
Side to release his office's latest Pulse Check, a semiannual report on
national trends in drug abuse gathered from 200 treatment centers and law
enforcement officials in 16 cities, including New York. The report, which
gave no specific numbers, also said that combining heroin with cocaine, a
practice known as "speedballing," was becoming more popular in New York. But
Pulse Check noted that the use of crack and powder cocaine declined in the
Northeast, which includes New York. It described the market for crack in New
York as "not expanding."

McCaffrey said that 13 million Americans used illegal drugs nationwide in
the last month.

Of these, 4.1 million are chronically addicted, he said, "and they're just a
mess."

Details of the report were confirmed by emergency room doctors at Roosevelt
Hospital, who talked about the cases they had handled recently. "We're
seeing a lot of snorting and we're seeing it with young people," said Dr.
David Pigott, a senior resident.

He added: "We had a beautiful 23-year-old girl who snorted cocaine at a
party, seven times on the hour. She awoke the next morning and fell out of
bed. Her left side was paralyzed from a stroke.

"She was devastated for the rest of her life, and there wasn't anything we
could do about it."

Pulse Check also reported that marijuana use in New York and elsewhere was
stable but that the age of people undergoing treatment for marijuana was
dropping. Dr. Elaine Josephson, another doctor in the emergency room, said
she was finding more marijuana abuse among school-age children in New York.
"Children are being brought from their schools because they were irrational
and hurting other people," she said. "They will tell you that they smoked
some bad weed. The youngest I've personally seen was 10 years old." The
doctors said there were also more bad reactions from so-called designer
drugs consumed by young people at clubs or parties, such as Ecstasy;
ketamine, an animal anesthetic, and a sedative called GHB. The use of such
drugs pose serious health risks for the young, Pulse Check said.