STUDY: RISE IN AGENCY'S CASES REFLECTS HEROIN PROBLEM

But crack, alcohol still area's biggest concerns, official says

The number of heroin addicts seeking help at a Dallas referral agency
jumped dramatically last year, an increase that reflects the drug's
growing popularity across Texas, according to a forthcoming state report.

The study analyzed records for 2,468 people who sought help at the
Greater Dallas Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse last year. It found
that 2.6 percent of the people seeking help in the first four months
of 1997 named heroin as their primary drug. For the year's last four
months, that figure climbed to 12.6 percent.

"It was absolutely startling," said Brandy Wismer, chief executive
officer of the Greater Dallas Council. "I've been here for eight
years, I've never seen a trend change like this so quickly. And it has
been very persistent; it has not dipped back down at all."

The increase was especially dramatic considering that only 2 to 3
percent of the council's clients were heroin users in previous years,
the report said.

Adolescents and young adults living in the suburbs appear to be
largely responsible for the increase, Ms. Wismer said.

"But I don't want to lose the concept that alcohol and crack cocaine
are still the most prevalent problems that we have," she said.

From January to June 1997, Parkland hospital had 311 cocaine
overdoses, 44 from heroin and 19 from methamphetamines, said Dr. Paul
Kolecki, an emergency room physician at Parkland and assistant medical
director of the North Texas Poison Center.

"Cocaine is the main drug here," Dr. Kolecki said. "Drug trends are
kind of like shopping trends: When something is popular it's hard to
get rid of it. The heroin dealers couldn't sell in downtown Dallas, so
they went out to Plano; at least that's the theory."

Jane C. Maxwell, a researcher with the Texas Commission on Alcohol and
Drug Abuse, doubts the number of heroin users will ever exceed the
number of people abusing alcohol. Heroin however, seems to be
attracting new users faster than crack.

"We're just seeing more and more of these new users of heroin," she
said. "And that worries me."

The commission report, "Heroin Trends in Texas," is scheduled to be
released later this week. Its results will be used in research at the
National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The commission has been monitoring heroin use in the Dallas area for a
couple of years, but its latest report "picks up other sites that are
also reporting purer heroin, cheaper heroin and more use by young
people," Dr. Maxwell said.

Austin, Fort Worth, Houston, Lubbock and San Antonio are seeing an
increase in heroin use, while it's remained steady in El Paso, the
commission report states.

Dallas and Tarrant counties are the only two areas in Texas where the
number of heroin-related deaths is climbing, Dr. Maxwell said.
According to the commission report, 44 people who died from heroin
overdoses in 1996 were from Dallas County, and 32 were from Tarrant
County.

Last year, at least 12 Collin County residents between the ages 13 and
37 died from heroin overdoses, Ms. Wismer said.

The Dallas area is a prime location for Colombian and Mexican drug
trafficking organizations in part because of the international airport
and the junction of four major interstate highways, said Julio
Mercado, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement
Administration's Dallas Field Division.

"It's easy to get here and then to other parts of the country," he
said. " ... [The dealers] go into the area and saturate the area with
free samples until they get people hooked."

Law enforcement at the federal, state and local levels working closely
together to identify the distributors have been successful, he said.
But the demand for the drug continues, and affordable and
comprehensive treatment programs are scarce.

From 1992 to 1996, 53 percent of the people who died from heroin were
white; 81 percent were male, and the average age was 38.

Ms. Wismer said she is frequently asked exactly where the heroin
addicts live. After doing an analysis by ZIP code, she found that no
neighborhood is immune.

"It's not just clustered in the city of Plano or McKinney," she said.
"We're seeing those cases all throughout the metropolitan area, in the
inner city as well as out in the suburbs. But we do seem to have a
higher percentage than we would expect in the suburban area."

Marsha Levin, program administrator for Collin County's Mental Health
and Mental Retardation Center, said the facility gets a lot of calls
from frightened parents seeking substance-abuse information for their
children.

"We've seen an increase in heroin, an increase in IV drug abusers,
which is surprising with all the stuff on AIDS," Ms. Levin said. "It's
very unfortunate that there's that kind of mass destruction going on.
Heroin .. I guess that's our atom bomb. It's scary."

Checked-by: (trikydik)