DRUG TALLY SHOOTS DOWN A RACIAL MYTH

Whites Top City's Rising Toll From Abuse

A new report by the Boston Public Health Commission explodes the myth
that drug abuse is centered in the city's minority communities,
indicating that while whites make up half of city residents, they
comprise two-thirds to three-fourths of those who have died from drug
abuse in recent years. The figures show the deadly grip of heroin,
OxyContin, and other drugs tightening in Boston, where 50 percent more
residents died from drugs in 2003 than in 1999, the time period
covered by the study.

Of the 145 drug-related deaths in 2003, most from overdoses, 94 of
victims were white, 32 black, and 19 Hispanic. The gap between whites
and minority group members in drug-related deaths persisted over the
five years studied, although the size of the difference fluctuated.
Death rates rose for all racial groups studied: whites, blacks, and
Hispanics. Drug abuse counselors said yesterday that the increase in
drug-related deaths is fueled by the availability of $4 bags of heroin
and an increasing number of people using combinations of substances:
crystal methamphetamine, heroin, and alcohol, for example.

At the same time, they said, there is less treatment available for
addicts trying to kick their habits. Drug counselors confirmed the
city's findings on racial differences in mortality rates, part of an
exhaustive annual report on the health of Bostonians. For example,
among the 1,000 people treated in 2004 by Victory Programs Inc., a
network of 18 residential treatment centers in Boston, 62 percent
were white, 22 percent were black, and 11 percent were Hispanic,
officials there said. Most were addicted to heroin, the leading cause
of drug-related deaths in Boston, said John Auerbach, executive
director of the Health Commission. City treatment centers are
reporting that more white residents are abusing heroin than blacks and
Hispanics, who tend to use crack or cocaine, which can be less lethal
than heroin.

Part of the reason may be the strength of heroin being peddled in
South Boston and Charlestown, neighborhoods with large white
populations, he said.

''There is a much larger use of heroin now in the white neighborhoods
than there ever was before," said state Representative Brian P.
Wallace, a South Boston Democrat who has been trying to boost funding
for drug treatment programs. ''The heroin is rampant," he said
yesterday. ''It's cheaper, purer, and people are buying it. We're
seeing people in their 40s who are OD-ing." The city's figures show
that the per capita rate of deaths caused by drugs is highest in South
Boston and Charlestown, followed by North Dorchester and East Boston,
all communities with large proportions of white residents.

In South Boston and Charlestown, 69 people per 100,000 died from drug
use in 2003, more than double the citywide rate of 26.3 per 100,000.
Jonathan D. Scott -- president of Victory Programs, which runs
treatment centers in Jamaica Plain, the South End, Dorchester,
Mattapan, and other neighborhoods -- said that ''it drives me crazy"
to hear people talk about drug problems disproportionately affecting
minority communities. ''It's just one of the fallacies that gets
perpetuated, that this is a ghetto problem in minority housing
projects," Scott said. ''It really is affecting every community in
this city."

Yet even as cheaper, purer heroin is being sold on the streets of
Boston, the number of detoxification beds available in the city has
plummeted by 39 percent, from 311 in 2001 to 189 in 2003, Auerbach
said. The number of residents receiving treatment fell in 2004 to its
lowest point in at least three years, with 16,532 people admitted to
city drug treatment centers.

The Public Health Commission blamed state budget cuts for the
decline. ''Obviously, we need more beds," said John McGahan, executive
director of Cushing House, a treatment center for teens in South
Boston. Cushing House, with its 16 beds for boys and 12 for girls, has
been full since the center opened in 1999, McGahan said, ''and that's
probably always going to be the case for some time."

He said he also has seen people of different races generally coming in
for treatment for addiction to different drugs. ''We don't see a lot
of minorities that actually use heroin -- they tend to use crack and
cocaine, marijuana and alcohol -- and you're going to have many more
deaths from opiates than cocaine or crack," he said.

Drug counselors said they also are treating increasing numbers of
young people using lethal combinations of drugs.

Sometimes, teenagers using OxyContin switch to heroin because it is
cheaper and so pure that it can be snorted instead of injected, making
it easier to use. Young people also mix heroin with prescription
antianxiety drugs or crystal methamphetamine. Scott compared the
cocktail's effect on the body to trying to drive a car with the gas
and brakes on at the same time.

''When you mix those drugs it doesn't take long for the car to
combust, explode," he said.

In 2003, 32.9 whites per 100,000 died of drugs, compared to 25.2
blacks and 22.6 Hispanics per 100,000, the health commission study
said. The figure for all races was 26.3 per 100,000. The Public
Health Commission said it did not tally other races because deaths
among them were too few to separate statistically.

Among men in Boston, drugs were the sixth-most common cause of death
in 2003, behind heart disease, cancer, injuries, chronic pulmonary
disease, and stroke and ahead of HIV, AIDS, and diabetes, the study
said. Substance abuse is not among the dozen leading causes for women.

Auerbach said he hopes the report draws attention to the danger of
reducing treatment services. ''We knew this was a growing problem, and
the number of deaths illustrate it tragically," he said.