WASTED YOUTH: HEROIN HAS GRIP ON BROCKTON AREA

First in a two-part update of the Wasted Youth series on heroin
addiction and the vise-like grip it has had on the region for more
than a decade.

The scourge of heroin abuse continues unabated in the greater
Brockton and Taunton region, according to two recent federal reports
on substance abuse.

And the problem, as first reported by The Enterprise in its ongoing
series "Wasted Youth," now extends to all of Eastern Massachusetts,
which outpaces much of the nation in heroin-fueled emergency room
visits and admissions to state treatment programs for painkiller
addictions, the studies say.

During the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2010, Brockton
residents accounted for 2,140 admissions to state-funded substance
abuse programs. Forty-five percent of the people admitted to programs
said they had used heroin during the previous year. Taunton had 1,318
admissions during the same period and 42 percent of those patients
said they had used heroin within the previous 12 months.

The data does not include information on the many treatment programs
funded by sources other than the state.

The new studies re-enforce the findings of The Enterprise series
which was first published in 2007 and is frequently updated on
enterprisenews.com: opiate addiction isn't just a big-city problem.

For example, Abington, a town of fewer than 16,000 people, had 616
admissions to state-funded drug or alcohol treatment programs during
the year. More than 54 percent 332 of those people said they had
used heroin in the past year, while about 48 percent 298 said
they had used alcohol.

One of the reports said Massachusetts is one of only four states
where an illegal drug in the Bay State's case, heroin outpaces
alcohol as the most common reason for admission to state-funded
substance abuse programs. That report said state-funded treatment
programs had 38,594 admissions for heroin alone in 2009, compared to
34,844 involving alcohol.

State hospitalization data from fiscal 2010 show the problem is not
limited to any single part of eastern Massachusetts. South of the
city, Brockton, Taunton, Plymouth, Stoughton, Quincy, Weymouth,
Norwood, Fall River and New Bedford, each saw more than 208 people
suffer non-fatal overdoses during the year.

The findings from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration highlight the state's ongoing struggle to reduce
overdoses and deaths from heroin and prescription drugs such as OxyContin.

"We know and we've been saying for years we have an epidemic here in
Massachusetts around heroin," said Vic DiGravio, president and CEO of
the Association of Behavioral Healthcare, which represents drug and
alcohol treatment providers. "That's in part being fed by the whole
OxyContin epidemic."

One report found Boston and surrounding counties had a higher rate of
emergency room visits involving illegal drugs in 2009 than 10 other
major metropolitan areas, including New York City, Detroit and Chicago.

This region also ranked first for emergency room visits involving
heroin. The analysis looked at hospital statistics from Norfolk,
Plymouth, Middlesex, Essex and Suffolk counties, as well as
Rockingham and Strafford counties in New Hampshire.

The report echoes the state's own statistics, which show non-fatal
emergency room visits involving heroin or other opiates rose 18
percent statewide from fiscal 2002 to 2007, though the number dipped
slightly in that final year.

Most of these visits involve a non-fatal overdose or some other
serious emergency, said Michael Botticelli, director of the Bureau of
Substance Abuse Services at the state Department of Public Health.

The second federal report said that treatment admission rates for
opiates other than heroin, such as OxyContin, were twice as high in
New England than any other region of the U.S. in 2009. In
Massachusetts, there were 4,734 of these types of state treatment
admissions that year, outpacing cocaine.

Nationally, admissions for people struggling with opiates other than
heroin spiked 430 percent from 1999 to 2009, the report said.

In Massachusetts, many people first get hooked on prescription
painkillers such as OxyContin, then move on to heroin, which is
cheaper and more accessible, DiGravio said.

The first federal report said Greater Boston saw 571 emergency room
visits involving illegal drugs per 100,000 people in 2009, well above
the national rate of 317 per 100,000.

The rate of heroin-related emergency room visits in this region was
251 per 100,000 people, more than three times the national rate, the
report said.

The Bureau of Substance Abuse Services also is expanding programs
that use the medication Suboxone to treat opiate addiction in
community health centers, where young people typically prefer to
undergo treatment, Botticelli said.Most people visiting emergency
rooms with drugs problems are under 35, Botticelli said.

Just last month, the state opened Independence Academy in Brockton, a
recovery high school. The school has the staff and the room to serve
as many as 50 drug- or alcohol-addicted students from southeastern
Massachusetts.

The state is also expanding training in the use of Narcan, a drug
used to counter the effects of an opiate overdose, among addicts and
their friends and family.

Coming Monday: Local police and drug treatment professionals blame
the ongoing heroin epidemic on the new generation of prescription
painkillers, including OxyContin and Percocet, which get people
hooked and then get them looking for cheaper alternatives such as heroin.

MONDAY: Heroin epidemic fueled by prescription drug abuse