ITHACA HEROIN BUSTS SHINE LIGHT ON GROWING PROBLEM

ITHACA -- More plentiful and pure than before, heroin is a
snort-able, smoke-able global commodity which, judging by recent
arrests, has appeared in Tompkins County.

What's more, heroin quality and supply may be contributing to a rise
in the use of heroin, which is now easier to take, according to law
enforcement officials.

In early September, Ithaca police arrested Rachel Warren, Robert D.
Nolan and Ricardo Perez-Leon, and seized about 2,700 glassine bags of
refined heroin, which they called their department's largest capture
of the drug in a quarter-century. Warren sold eight small bags of
heroin to an undercover police officer at the Triphammer Mall,
according to police, and Nolan possessed about 46 of the heroin bags
when he was arrested in the parking lot of Dick's Sporting Goods at
the Shops at Ithaca Mall a week later.

Less than a month before, community complaints led to the arrest of
Anthony Ponchalek, 58, of Danby, for heroin trafficking. An Ithaca
Police officer saw someone pick Ponchalek up on South Meadow Street,
alerted another officer who stopped the car for a traffic violation
and found seven bags of heroin, eight suboxone pills, an opiate, and
a narcotics sales tally sheet in Ponchalek's possession, court papers
allege.

The 2,700 bags of heroin is "a significant amount," said Syracuse
Police Lt. John Corbett, who has spent two-thirds of his 36
year-career in the special investigations division, which is charged
with narcotics enforcement, vice enforcement and operations. Now the
executive officer of the division, he estimated that he's taken part
in about 1,500 drug raids.

"Generally speaking, street-level dealers will be caught with only a
few dozen bags of heroin," he said. "With that much, they may have
been mid-level dealers."

Judging by the number of recent Syracuse Police search warrants for
the drug, heroin use is rising, he said.

"Obviously, there is a market for it," Corbett said, adding that the
quality and quantity of heroin has gone up worldwide.

"The quality of street-level heroin is so high, people can snort and
smoke it to get the desired effect," he said. Acting Ithaca Police
Chief Ed Vallely made the same points at a recent meeting of the Fall
Creek Neighborhood Association, and called Warren, Nolan and
Perez-Leon "entrepreneurs" in heroin trafficking.

"It's distressing that such an addictive drug is becoming the drug of
choice right now," Vallely later said.

Next to injections -- the traditional ways of taking heroin --
smoking is the most effective way to get heroin into the body,
Corbett said. However, smoking and snorting eliminate the pain,
social stigma and appearance of the needle.

"Snorting and smoking are much more confidential and quick," he
said.

The heroin trade has also evolved, Corbett said, and Colombian drug
runners are now growing opium poppies -- the plant from which heroin
is derived -- in places they once grew coca, the plant from which
cocaine is derived. Using their existing cocaine marketing and
trafficking channels, Colombians are dominating a market their
Chinese counterparts once ruled, he said.

"The Colombians have jumped -- with both feet -- into the heroin
business," Corbett said. This competition has led to the increase on
heroin quality, he added.

Pending cases

Warren, 21, Nolan, 23, of Gloversville, and Perez-Leon, 26, of
Hartford, Conn., were arraigned in Lansing Town Court and charged
with third-degree criminal possession of controlled substance. Warren
was indicted on that charge and criminal sale of a controlled
substance, both Class B felonies, in late September.

With her boyfriend Nolan and Perez-Leon free on $10,000 bail, Warren
- -- still incarcerated -- pleaded guilty to attempted criminal sale of
a controlled substance, a Class C felony, and admitted to selling
heroin to the undercover officer. She told police that she, Nolan and
Perez-Leon had been trafficking heroin "in and around Tompkins
County, and that she had sold heroin in the past," court papers said.

Court papers showed that Warren had also lived in Milford and New
Britain, Conn.

As part of her plea, Warren must complete a drug rehabilitation
program, cooperate in prosecution of Nolan and Perez-Leon and forfeit
the money seized in the raid, court papers said. She was remanded to
Tompkins County Jail without bail until there is an opening in a drug
rehabilitation program. Scott Miller, her attorney, said her
involvement in the crime was to support her habit.

Still free on bail, Nolan and Perez-Leon's cases are pending in
Lansing Town Court.

Ponchalek was indicted in late October on charges of third-degree
criminal possession of a controlled substance and seventh-degree
criminal possession of a controlled substance, which is a
misdemeanor. Initially held on $5,000 bail, Ponchalek was released by
the court pursuant to a motion by his attorney and arraigned last
week.

The addiction picture

In a 2007 survey, 10 out of 1,029 Ithaca City School District
middle-school students said they had tried heroin, according to Sarah
Hess, assistant coordinator the Tompkins County Community Coalition
for Healthy Youth. Of the 1,073 district high school students
surveyed, 18 said they had tried heroin, with three students saying
they used it regularly, she added.

Richard C. Bennett, treatment director of Cayuga Addiction Recovery
Services, said about 16 percent of their clients in residential and
outpatient programs are being treated for a primary dependency on an
opiate.

"Of that group, 54 percent are dependent on heroin," Bennett said.
"Both seem to be increases over last year. We have seen an increase
in opiate-dependent clients in treatment."

Perhaps more sobering is the number of needle exchanges tracked by
the Southern Tier Aids Program (STAP), which, via a program designed
to reduce the risk of infection among injection drug users, has been
exchanging used syringes for new ones since 2002.

Things have picked up since then, said Jeffrey Wynnyk, director of
Prevention Services for STAP. So far this year, in about 4,275
encounters with the exchange program's 278 active participants,
they've traded about 80,397 new needles for about 72,124 used ones.
The program trades one used needle for 11 news ones, he explained.

While some of the participants are diabetics or trans-gender
individuals using hormones, "the majority of them are illicit drug
users," Wynnyk said.

"Heroin is still the drug of choice for most of our participants," he
said. "The number of needle exchanges has gone up dramatically." He
cautioned, however, that the increase in needle exchanges may be due
to an increase in drug use, awareness of their programs, or both.

While his main job is law enforcement, he also conducts workshops on
substance abuse, Corbett said. His interest in substance-abuse
enforcement started in grammar school, where, via class projects, he
became "fascinated that a little, white, inert powder could dominate
a person's life."

Once thought of as an older person's drug, the heroin addicts they
see now are "younger and younger," Corbett said. They see addicts who
are as young as 19 or 20, which he finds "somewhat startling."

Heroin is a depressant, and heroin users' dependence is mainly
physical, which makes rehabilitating them difficult, Corbett said.

"It's the withdrawal people don't want to put up with," he said.
Heroin addicts, unlike other addict types, are less likely to
cooperate with police, he added.

"They know if they give up their source, they're dry, and they'll get
sick," he said. They also catch people dealing methadone and
suboxone, which are prescribed for heroin addiction, he added.

Needle exchange programs have a fatal flaw, Corbett
said.

"They don't provide any incentive for addicts to seek treatment --
just to continue their addiction," Corbett said. Addicts without
money often turn to petty crimes such as larceny and prostitution to
support their habits, but will occasionally resort to burglary and
armed robbery, he explained.

"Drug addiction and crime go hand in hand," he said. Drugs and
drug-related crimes are not just a big-city problems, he added.

"In the bigger cities, the crime problems are the same, they're just
bigger, and there's more of them," he said.

Heroin is very addictive and a horror, he warned.

"Young people who experiment with heroin find out very quickly what a
mistake they made," he said, "and that the road back from addiction
is a lot longer than the road in."