STATE SAYS HEROIN BECOMING MORE LETHAL

Associated Press

AUSTIN Heroin is being made even more dangerous by the peddling of
purer and more lethal forms of the drug, says a report Tuesday by the
Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.

"Heroin is readily available in Texas, and it is extremely addictive,"
said Jane Maxwell, head of the commission's research branch.

The number of people seeking treatment at commissionfunded facilities
for heroin addiction increased to 12 percent of the total number treated
this year, up from 9 percent four years ago, the report said.

The agency still is compiling statewide numbers but says the number of
overdose deaths in Dallas County rose from 33 in 1995 to 40 last year.
In Tarrant County the number increased from 19 to 27.

This is the latest indicator that heroin use in Texas has increased,
officials said.

The National Office of Drug Control Policy ranked San Antonio sixth in
the nation in the number of heroin users last month. It also reported
that heroin was the drug of choice in that city.

Many of the Dallasarea deaths have been in Plano, where 11 teenagers
have died of heroin overdoses in the past 12 months.

All of those deaths were from inhaling the drug, a practice young people
are convinced is safer than using a needle, Ms. Maxwell said.

"What we're very concerned about is that 25 years ago people knew heroin
is deadly," Ms. Maxwell said. "And now we have a generation that doesn't
know it's deadly and have no experience with it."

Ms. Maxwell said the purity of heroin found in the Plano area also has
been high. Uncut heroin has ranged in purity from 38 percent to 75
percent, compared with the normal level of 1.3 percent to 12 percent,
she said.

"Not only is the uncut heroin in North Texas approaching the strength of
Colombian or Asian heroin, but the cut, or streetlevel, heroin is much
stronger than it has ever been," Ms. Maxwell said.

Mexican heroin dealers are improving the purity of the drug to compete
with South American and Asian heroin.

"What pure heroin will do is kill you," she said. "You don't know how
pure it is or what it's been cut with."

She said the Plano case also exemplifies that drug users are targeting
more suburban, affluent customers. "They are looking for customers that
have money."

Rep. Nancy Moffat, RSouthlake, said parents in these upper middleclass
neighborhoods don't take the threat of drug abuse by their children
seriously enough.

"That's the problem in these uppermiddleclass neighborhoods; they
think it will not happen to them," she said.