Heroin use appears to be on upswing

Study: Hospital admissions related to drug have increased over decade

BY CONNIE SKIPITARES
Mercury News Staff Writer

Hospital admissions for heroinrelated illnesses have risen sharply in recent
years in
Santa Clara County and throughout the state, fueling claims by some drug
experts that
heroin use is experiencing a new wave of popularity, a study released
Thursday said.

Three Bay Area counties San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa led the
state
with the most dramatic increases, but several central California counties as
well as Los
Angeles and San Diego counties also posted significant increases, according to
the
study.

Although Santa Clara County's rate for heroin users' hospitalization was
lower than
other counties', it increased 38 percent between 1986 and 1995, according to the
Irvinebased Public Statistics Institute. The 1995 rate was 47 per 100,000
population.

In San Francisco County, the hospital admission rate in 1995 was 314 per
100,000
people by far the highest in the state and three times that of Alameda and
Contra
Costa counties, which posted the second and third highest admissions.

Alameda County showed a 56 percent increase in the rate of admissions
between 1986
and 1995.

The study's authors noted that heroin has become easier and cheaper to buy
and its
purer quality and quicker high has attracted more users. The drug's potency
has led to
quicker addiction and more overdoses.

The study also found that, although the predominant number of heroin users
continues to be middleaged and male, hospital emergency personnel are
seeing a
new type of user of the hardcore drug collegeage men and women.

``Heroin is becoming more prevalent on campus and we're seeing addicts as
well as
recreational users in the 1824 crowd,'' says Margaret Thielemeir, researcher
and
coauthor of the study. ``They're smoking it or inhaling it they prefer that
over
using needles so it's easier to use and get high.''

Many young people think that smoking or snorting heroin is safer and they
can't
become addicted to the drug, but that's not true, warns James K. Cunningham,
research director for the Institute who led the study. ``That's a myth. Injecting
heroin
isn't the only thing that gets you into trouble.''

Cunningham says emergency room personnel are seeing heroin users with
medical
problems such as opiate poisoning, hepatitis, convulsions, chest pain,
pneumonia,
heart problems and depression.

Santa Clara County drug program coordinator Bruce Copley says he has not
seen the
dramatic increase in heroin users that the Irvine study shows. The population
the
program treats has remained steady for a number of years and, he says, is
predominantly middleaged. ``We see roughly the same clients over and over
as the
years go on,'' Copley says.

Copley suggested that the study may have found an artificial increase in users
because
it appears to count each hospital admission as a new user, rather than tracking
whether individuals had multiple admissions.

The study's researchers culled their figures from computer records provided
by the
California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development.

Published Friday, July 11, 1997, in the San Jose Mercury News

©19967 Mercury Center.