HEROIN OVERDOSE DEATHS SOAR IN OREGON

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) -- Heroin overdose deaths in Oregon are 10 times what
they were in 1991, and drug counselors warn that the toll likely will stay
high because the addictive drug is cheap, potent and widely available.

Oregon recorded 59 heroin overdose deaths in 1990, 18 in 1991 and 179 in
1998. Last year's heroin deaths accounted for 76 percent of the state's
total drug overdoses.

"It's extremely reinforcing, then after they use it a couple times it
becomes a physical dependence," said Dr. Doug Bovee, medical director of
the CODA Addiction Treatment Services clinic in Eugene.

Most of the heroin comes from South America by way of Mexico. A gram sells
for about $50. Addicts go through agonizing withdrawal symptoms when they
quit, including cold sweats, nausea, muscle spasms and bone and joint aches.

"If they use heroin, within seconds it's gone," Bovee said. "It's so easy
to relieve it with heroin."

He and others said most deaths are accidental, the result of users getting
doses too large or too pure for their systems. Others die from using heroin
with other substances, including alcohol or methamphetamine.

"If it was just alcohol or just heroin it might not be enough to kill them,
but they combine the two and it knocks off their respiration centers and
causes them to die," Bovee said.

His clinic and one run by Lane County treat heroin addiction with
methadone, a synthetic narcotic that relieves withdrawal symptoms without
causing the high sensation of heroin.

The methadone clinics treat about 300 people between them.

In Lane County alone 33 people died of heroin overdoses in 1998. Heroin
accounted for 73 percent of the county's 45 overdose deaths last year.

"I'd say it's between massive and immense," he said. "It's a huge, huge
problem."