PURER, CHEAPER SNORTABLE HEROIN FLOODS U.S.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Purer product, cheaper prices and savvy marketing have
given deadly Colombian heroin the lion's share of the U.S. market with New
England the fastest growing segment, Drug Enforcement Administration
officials said Wednesday.

George Festa, the DEA special agent in charge of New England, attributed
the resurgence of heroin to "a lack of memory on the part of youth,
celebrity heroin chic and the fact that you no longer have to inject it.
The purity is so incredible, you can snort it.

"The ability to snort heroin like cocaine means that it eliminates needles
and the risk of AIDS. So its use is spreading. These people don't realize
that heroin is not cocaine. Heroin is not a recreational drug," Festa said.

The Colombians use their well-established cocaine distribution networks to
offer free samples of the drug and make it available in smaller, cheaper
quantities.

The result is that after decades of a market once dominated by Southeast
and Southwest Asian drugs, Colombian heroin now accounts for more than 60
percent of the heroin smuggled into the country, the DEA said.

"The purity of the product is what really concerns us," Festa said. "We've
made street buys with a purity of 95 percent, even 97 percent."

When blues singer Billie Holiday died from an overdose of heroin, purity
levels were about 7 percent; when rocker Janis Joplin overdosed, purity
levels hovered about 20 percent; and when rock group Smashing Pumpkins'
keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin died, purity levels had already reached more
than 60 percent.

"There is still a heroin chic thing, too," Festa said.

He pointed to Oscar-nominated actor Robert Downey Jr., who was sent to
prison for six months earlier in December. The actor was caught with heroin
and cocaine in violation of his probation on an earlier charge of drug use.

Bags of Colombian heroin can be bought on Boston streets for $4. The price
rises a bit by the time it gets to Vermont where the same quantity costs
about $15, Festa said. The wholesale price of a kilo (2.2 pounds) of heroin
has remained pretty stable in the last few years, averaging between
$125,000 and $180,000 depending on the source, he said.

The comparable cost for a kilo of cocaine has gone down to $25,000 from
$60,000, DEA
statistics show.

Nationally, the number of people receiving emergency treatment for drug
overdoses in U.S. hospitals declined in 1996, but for the main illegal
drugs, the overall trend remained upward, according to the U.S. Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The DEA's drug abuse warning network in 1995 found Boston, Baltimore, New
York and Newark, N.J., were the regions of the country with the most
striking increases in heroin use.

Kilo shipments are no longer the rule. "What we're seeing is people driving
to New York and bringing back bundles (50 bags) and gram and ounce
quantities," Festa said.

Dominican traffickers are wiring their proceeds out of the country in
varying amounts of no more than $2,000, the DEA reported. Conversely, the
DEA said, Colombians seem to prefer to ship the funds back to New York
concealed in the same cars that transported the drugs. ^REUTERS@