Newshawk's Note: See the sentence in the ensuing article: "Heroin is the
fatal drug of choice in Portland and throughout Oregon. It is responsible
for more Oregon deaths than any other drug, said Dr. Larry Lewman, state
medical examiner." Now that seems worthy of a few letters. -- Phil S.

HEROIN'S GRASP ON PORTLAND

* The Double Suicide Of A Couple Who Hanged Themselves From The Steel
Bridge Is A Glimpse Of A Dire Problem

Hanging themselves from Portland's Steel Bridge during rush-hour traffic
was not the way Michael Douglas and Mora McGowan first thought they would
end their heroin addictions.

Shortly before the July 1 double suicide, McGowan, 25, tried to cut her
wrists. And Douglas, her 29-year-old fiance, made plans to swap his last
possession of any value -- a bicycle -- for enough heroin to overdose.

But when those plans failed, and the desperate couple hanged themselves
from the Steel Bridge in full view of downtown commuters, the message to
all of Portland was clear: Look at us.

It appears that the double suicide wasn't so much to make a public
spectacle as to force Portland to look at the rampant problem of heroin and
its destructive influence.

In a 13-page journal found on his body, Douglas described the couple's
downward spiral since he and McGowan became addicted to heroin. The
powerful pull of the drug was almost a demonic possession. The cravings for
more were overwhelming; thoughts of rehabilitation and help were shoved
aside.

As much as the public suicide horrified people, it didn't surprise those
who have used heroin or who havetried to help drag people from its grasp.

"Because heroin is so expensive compared to other drugs, heroin addicts
tend to use up everybody and everything in their lives very quickly --
money, jobs, family, friends, possessions, everything," said Donna Mulcare
, a volunteer coordinator for the Oregon Partnership's drug hot line.

Heroin is the fatal drug of choice in Portland and throughout Oregon. It is
responsible for more Oregon deaths than any other drug, said Dr. Larry
Lewman, state medical examiner.

For the past six years, heroin deaths have been occurring at a record pace,
pushing the state's overall drug-related deaths to new heights.

In 1997, there were 221 drug-related deaths in Oregon. Of those, 161, or 73
percent, involved heroin. In Multnomah County last year, 97 of 121
drug-related deaths, or 80 percent, involved heroin. Drug-related suicides
are included in those numbers.

The medical examiner's office could rule the McGowan and Douglas suicides
as heroin-related once toxicology results are completed.

In the 1980s, after Mexican black-tar heroin was introduced to the Portland
area, the drug claimed fewer than one victim a week. But in recent years,
the toll has increased steadily; heroin deaths last year reached about
three a week.

So far this year, the phenomenon has leveled off with 59 deaths involving
heroin. But authorities are quick to say that use of the drug, especially
in Portland, isn't waning at all.

In a recent study by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Oregon
ranked behind only Manhattan with 39 percent of people arrested testing
positive for heroin and related opiates.

A Justice Department study released by the White House on Saturday showed
40 percent of people arrested testing positive for opiates, a particular
problem among young women. Use of cocaine and methamphetamines also was up.

None of that surprises Richard L. Harris, executive director of Central
City Concern, which oversees the Hooper Center for Alcohol and Drug
Intervention, the largest inpatient detoxification clinic in Portland.

"I would be confident in saying Portland probably has the highest
per-capita number of heroin addicts than any other major city," he said.

"It's everywhere"

On West Burnside Street between the bridge and the North Park Blocks,
dealers dole out tar heroin to people who defy categories.

They're all here. The derelicts. The leathered. The punked-out
skateboarders. The pierced and tattooed crowd. High school preps. Graying
hippies. Stressed-out college students and strung-out housewives. Corporate
types who pull up in luxury sedans.

Portland narcotics officers and health professionals see them all. When it
comes to heroin, there is no one type of user.

"Working class, middle class. Welders, truck drivers, musicians;
unfortunately even a pilot," said Dr. Marshall Bedder, medical director of
Advanced Pain Management Group, which conducts a six-hour detox program for
heroin addicts. "CEOs, graduate students, wives of working people and kids
who are supported by their parents. That's the bulk of what we're seeing."

The range of users even surprises the addicts.

"I've seen people I never would have dreamed would be down on Burnside,"
said a 22-year-old heroin addict who is going through detox at the Hooper
Center, which allows interviews of patients on the condition their names
are not used. "I've seen rich, upper-class kids dressed in GQ, copping a
fix alongside the bums."

Chasing shadows

For police, trying to disrupt the supply of heroin in Portland is like
chasing shadows. Whenever police target Burnside Street, heroin activity
turns up elsewhere.

"Burnside used to be thick with dealers," said Eric Schober, a narcotics
officer. "Now we're seeing a rise in the Hawthorne District.

"It's like pushing on a balloon. You push one end, and the air pops up at
the other end."

For those who can afford some anonymity, dealers pass out their pager
numbers so addicts can reach them 24 hours a day.

"It's not like it was in the 1970s, when Skidmore (Street) was the place to
go buy heroin," Schober said. "Now it's everywhere."

Addiction counselors fear more people are using heroin because the price
has dropped, partly because so much is available and because dealers are
pushing it so hard.

Heroin dealers have even staked out detox centers to keep customers from
going clean, police and counselors say.

"Drug dealers will hang out outside of methadone clinics, approaching
people when they get out of treatment," Schober said.

At Hooper, on the southeast corner of Northeast Couch Street and Martin
Luther King Jr. Boulevard, a heroin dealer once got himself admitted to
treatment so he could persuade a woman to leave the clinic and start using
again.

"It's crazy," said Mary Meyer, an admit clerk at Hooper. "We have to be so
careful."

Also, the growing popularity of snorting and smoking heroin, rather than
shooting up, has lured younger users.

In Portland, tar heroin sells for about $120 a gram, Schober said. Most
addicts cannot afford the larger dose, so they buy a quarter of a gram for
between $40 and $55.

Suicide plan foiled

It was to have been a private affair. But the original suicide plans of
Mora Kathleen McGowan and Michael Shannon Douglas were foiled.

McGowan cut her wrists, but her mother rushed her to a hospital. Douglas
tried to come up with enough money for an overdose, but he couldn't.

Earlier that week, they'd been asked to leave the McCormick Pier apartment
of a friend. Facing homelessness and having exhausted their financial
resources, their bodies and their will, the couple -- still craving heroin
- -- saw what they thought was their only solution.

They saw the Steel Bridge -- and perhaps a chance to make a statement in a
city known for its thriving heroin culture.

Douglas recorded the last few weeks of the couple's lives in his journal,
scrawled in an oversized artist sketchpad amid tattoo-style drawings.

"He wrote about how the world was a terrible place and that he couldn't
live in it unless he was high," said Sgt. Kent Perry, a Portland police
dtective. "He was distraught about his addiction and didn't see any way out
of it."

The drug had become such an obsession that the couple pawned everything
they owned of any value to feed their habit, Douglas wrote in his journal.

Police found the journal in a book bag Douglas had slung across his chest
when he jumped off the bridge. The couple, called soul mates by those who
knew them, hanged themselves with separate nooses tied together.

"I think I've decided on an old-fashioned public hanging. . . . Thirteen
loops in a hangman's noose," Douglas wrote in his last journal entry. "The
Steel Bridge shall be my gallows. . . . Mora and I go together on the Steel
Bridge."

A collector of vintage clothing, McGowan was the youngest in a family of
three girls. Her friends and co-workers describe her as a friendly but shy
beauty who carried herself like a model and experimented with her hair and
makeup.

Treatment failed

Those who knew McGowan well said they became aware of her addiction last
fall. By that time, they suspected the problem had ruled her life for some
time. She tried treatment at least once but failed.

Less than a year ago, McGowan was an assistant manager for a downtown salon
and beauty supply store. She was never late in paying her $410 rent for a
small studio in the Belmont Court Apartments.

But in August, shortly before McGowan moved out, "we started having trouble
getting the rent," said Lucy Johnson, the apartment manager.

Ruby Patterson, McGowan's former manager at the salon, said: "I was so
shocked to hear about Mora. She was a hard worker. She was fair and honest.
She was genuine, and she was a good sales girl."

Douglas, who moved in with McGowan after they met through friends, worked
as a landscaper and tattoo artist. They became engaged 1BD years ago.

Douglas grew up an only child in Salem and was a regular at Zero Gravity, a
skateboard shop, said Angela Thompson, who married Douglas secretly when
they were teen-agers.

The couple lived for three months with Thompson's parents until Douglas
left, but they didn't divorce until 1993, when she tracked him down in
Portland through a classified advertisement.

"I feel so bad for his mom and dad," Thompson said. "They loved him so much
and tried so hard. There was a good side to him, but drugs were always
involved in his life."

Both McGowan's and Douglas' parents declined to discuss their children's
suicides. Separate memorial services have been held. In McGowan's obituary,
her mother listed the cause of her death as "suicide due to heroin
addiction."

The first mention of suicide appeared in Douglas' journal in the last few
days of June, police said.

"He wrote that his last resource was a $160 mountain bike," said Detective
Sgt. Derrick Anderson, who read the journal. "That was his last resource to
exchange for enough drugs to go commit suicide on his own. But that didn't
work out for some reason.

"He wrote about being very tired. If you've got to come up with $200 every
day, and you have nothing left, that's a lot of work. That's a treadmill."

"People are in crisis"

Mulcare talks to dozens of heroin addicts a week while answering the Oregon
Partnership's hot line.

"Without the drug, you're going to be in extreme physical and emotional
pain," she said. "You can't walk. Your gut is cramping. And if you're like
most young people, you have no resources, and you can't get publicly funded
treatment any sooner than six to eight weeks."

Ten of the 17 people admitted to the Hooper Center on a recent morning were
addicted to heroin. For every one treatment slot in Portland, 10 heroin
addicts are turned away, Harris said.

It is a gut-wrenching experience for Hooper intake clerks, who want to help
everyone who comes through the doors.

On Thursday morning, three heroin addicts drove three hours from Seattle to
get into the Hooper Center's program, which uses acupuncture to ease
withdrawal symptoms.

They were turned away, as was a young woman, black circles beneath her
eyes. Tears rolled down her flushed cheeks as she stormed out of the center
lobby.

"People are in crisis," Harris said. "We know when we send them out of here
,we're sending them back out on the streets to use. But we only have so
many openings."

Sometimes addicts start lining up at 3 a.m. for a spot at the center, which
opens at 7:30 a.m., admit clerk Meyer said. But Harris said decisions are
based on physical need.

Another Hooper admit clerk, Faye Moore, tossed and turned in her bed at
home when she heard the news of McGowan's and Douglas' suicide. Earlier
that morning, she had turned away a couple seeking treatment.

"I felt sick to my stomach until I got into work and looked on the computer
to see it wasn't them," she said. "Then I thought, 'Well, that other couple
is still out there.' "

Each year, Harris said,the Hooper Center treats 3,000 heroin addicts, and
another 7,000 are enrolled in methadone and other detox programs in the
state.

Even the redemption of detox isn't enough to help some addicts.

"You know that for two weeks you're going to be the sickest you've ever
been in your life, and you're going to want to die," Mulcare said. "Some
people wrongly think suicide is the answer."

Thoughts of suicide familiar

The 22-year-old addict said he checked himself into Hooper two days after
he heard about the Steel Bridge suicide.

It is his fifth time through the program. His parents still think he's
clean from his fourth attempt at sobriety several months ago.

"Every junkie I've known has thought about suicide," he said. "I just
thought, another one taking the easy way out."

The man said he moved to Portland a few years ago to make a clean start.

But Portland "was more saturated with heroin than any other city I've lived
in," he said. When he got off the bus at a downtown station, his demon was
staring him straight in the face.

"As soon as I hit Burnside, people were like, 'What do you need?' " he
said. "I was in Portland five minutes before I used."

When he's not in detox, the once-aspiring musician said, his entire life
revolves around heroin, a morning-to-night chase for the drug.

He often will choose buying drugs over renting a cheap hotel room. He
steals candy bars to stave off hunger, or, he said, "I'll go through
garbage cans."

He doesn't know what the future holds.

"I wish I could say this is the last time, but I don't know what is going
to happen," he said. "I just keep asking myself, why did I do this to my
life?"

It's the same question people are asking about McGowan and Douglas. Friends
and strangers have painted and scratched messages of compassion and
confusion in the railing of the Steel Bridge where the couple jumped.

One message, written in yellow nail polish, reads, "I love you both!!

"Why?"