"Like marijuana and cocaine before it, heroin is leaving a trail of
deaths and battered lives in the country where it is produced, law
enforcement officials and health workers said, not just in consumer
nations such as the United States....Growing drug use here is one of the
leasttalkedabout consequences of being a major drugproducing nation..."

Thursday, March 27 1997; Page A31
The Washington Post
1150 15th St. NW
Washington DC 200710001

Drug Leaves Another Trail of Death, Destruction in Colombia
By Douglas Farah
Washington Post Foreign Service

BOGOTA, Colombia Gerardo, his dead eyes drifting around
the room, smiled weakly and said he began shooting heroin on the
streets here two years ago, buying needles and syringes at
pharmacies and watching the number of fellow users grow.

"Before, no one did `H,' " said Gerardo, whose left arm bears the
tattoo "Proud to be a Colombian."

"Now, more and more people like it. You can buy it on the street
now," he said.

Gerardo, 28, is among a growing number of heroin addicts in
Colombia, a trend healthcare specialists say poses a serious
national problem.

Like marijuana and cocaine before it, heroin is leaving a trail of
deaths and battered lives in the country where it is produced, law
enforcement officials and health workers said, not just in consumer
nations such as the United States.

Growing drug use here is one of the leasttalkedabout
consequences of being a major drugproducing nation, and a trend
that belies the claims of drug traffickers that their product does not
hurt their own country.

There have been no studies on how many heroin addicts there are
now in Bogota, the Colombian capital, but healthcare
professionals said three years ago there were virtually no cases of
heroin overdoses in hospitals, and no heroinrelated calls to drug
hot lines.

Now, according to Camilo Uribe, director of Bogota's Toxicology
Clinic, there are seven to nine overdose cases a month at Kennedy
Hospital in the poor, southern section of the city.

"Unless we take urgent steps now, heroin will be a very serious
public health problem," he said. "The cost will be very high in terms
not just of addiction, but AIDS, hepatitis, hypertension and heart
disease. But prevention measures are longterm, and what is
longterm does not get funded because it is not politically
palatable."

Augusto Perez, who runs a drug rehabilitation center for children,
said that in 1996, for the first time, he began seeing youngsters
who injected heroin.

"What really got my attention was the very young age of the users,"
he said. "That is what really scares me." He estimated that the
number of heroin addicts in Bogota had grown from 3,000 in 1994
to 10,000 today.

Since heroin began appearing on the streets here about three years
ago, the price has dropped, according to Gerardo and other
addicts interviewed one night as they prepared to shoot up. A
"metro," or long line of heroin, costs about $40 on the street, down
from $60 two years ago.

On the streets, another heroin addict named Pocho, rail thin and
getting fidgety waiting for a fix, said heroin use initially brought
prestige because it was new. And instead of making him
aggressive, like cocaine, heroin calmed him down.

"But it always exacts a price," Pocho said. "I don't take this drug to
find happiness any more. I do it because I cannot stop."

=A9 Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company