SMACK ISN'T BACK--IT NEVER LEFT

The news seemed liked a blast from the city's seedy past.

Six people fatally overdosing in as many days, most within blocks of each
other. Maybe tainted or super-potent dope that could still be circulating?
And most shocking, especially to parents all over the city, among the dead
were two college co-eds, teen-agers many would never envision being part of
the hardcore lifestyle associated with heroin.

After the city's health commissioner issued an alert, comparisons were
instantly drawn to the tainted "Tango and Cash" heroin scourge that killed
a dozen people and sickened more than 100 others back in 1991, a time when
the city's worst drug problems were just beginning to ebb.

The recent deaths also led many to believe heroin could be making a
comeback. But arrest numbers, treatment records and anecdotal evidence by
those who treat drug addiction suggest that heroin actually never went
anywhere.

"We're under this false illusion that the heroin problem has been
straightened out or quelled," said Hezzi Allen, who has worked for Areba
Casriel Inc. as a drug rehabilitation counselor for 12 years. "It's just
gotten more sophisticated."

It's readily available, even to youths, cheaper than ever, and becoming
more attractive because it can be snorted, or smoked as well as injected.

Where once heroin was sold openly on street corners and nodding junkies
littered the city's sidewalks, it now is distributed more covertly to users
who tend to get high out of public view.

"It's no longer people on street corners touting what they have by yelling
out the name of a product," Allen said. "Now they use beepers and cell
phones. You beep them, tell them what you want, then meet them and they
deliver."

"In the '80s, I'd walk down the street in the East Village and step on
syringes. It's not like that anymore. It's less prominent. But it hasn't
gone down," he said. "Actual usage hasn't increased but it hasn't decreased
either. The volume in the drug treatment centers has not gone down. We're
still very busy."

Tracking use Accurate numbers of users are hard to come by, nationally and
in the city, in part because most don't want to be counted, and many tend
to use other drugs as well, which makes them hard to categorize, according
to law enforcement officials and Allen. In the recent spate of fatal
overdoses, four of the six are believed to have also used cocaine,
officials said.

Several sets of indicators, however, show that heroin use, including among
younger people, has remained static recently and as far back as the early
1990s.

Last year, 51,524 people sought treatment for heroin in New York City
hospitals and rehabilitation centers, slightly fewer than the year before,
according to the state's Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services.

A survey by the Drug Abuse Warning Network, which tracks hospital emergency
room visits, found that between 1995 and 2002 the number of heroin-related
emergency room visits increased by 26 percent nationwide while New York
City's rate went down by 3 percent.

Nationally, a 1996 survey estimated that 2.4 million people had used heroin
during their life. In 2003, that number was 1.9 million.

Heroin arrest and drug seizure totals, while influenced by factors such as
crackdowns or one-time large seizures, have remained largely stagnant or
have decreased recently.

The Mayor's Management Report shows that heroin seizures by the New York
Police Department, while rising from 498 pounds in fiscal year 2003 to 834
pounds in fiscal year 2004, were still far lower than the previous three years.

From 1992 to 2001, the most recent for which Newsday was able to obtain
police records, arrests spiked in the mid-1990s, then decreased. In 1992,
NYPD officers arrested 23,509 people on heroin charges, and in 2001, 27,863.

In 1992, 3,341 were people under the age of 21. In 2001, that number was 3,195.

Snorting, Then Shooting

While the number of users may be roughly the same, the way they're using
heroin has changed drastically. A report by Drug and Alcohol Services
Information System, which is put out by an agency of the U.S. Department of
Health & Human Services, found that between 1992 and 2002 the percentage of
users who snorted or smoked heroin, as opposed to injecting it with a
needle, increased from 20 percent to 33 percent.

During that time, annual admissions to publicly funded treatment facilities
for heroin increased from about 168,000 to 284,000, which was an increase
from 11 percent to 15 percent of the total number of those being treated
for drug addictions.

Special Agent in Charge John Gilbride, who heads the Drug Enforcement
Administration's New York office, attributed that to the fact that heroin
in recent years has become cheaper and more pure, making it more potent, in
an effort by drug organizations to attract more customers. The ability to
snort heroin may attract more young people who would otherwise be leery of
using needles.

"No one thinks they're going to become IV users," Allen said. "People tend
to shy away from needles because they don't want the virus."

Still, there is evidence that those snorters will eventually graduate to
shooting heroin. The DAISIS report found that admissions of people 30 and
under for heroin inhalation treatment decreased from 45 percent in 1992 to
22 percent a decade later in the nation. At the same time, the 30 and under
injection admissions increased from 21 percent to 31 percentage.

"If they keep on sniffing the odds are they're going to shoot sooner or
later," Allen said.

While the national drug report offered no age breakdown for heroin use,
most studies find that while as many as 8 percent of kids 12 to 17 years
old use marijuana, only a minuscule number of teen-agers use heroin.

According to statistics from Daytop Village treatment center, about 3
percent of the adolescents seeking treatment there had been using heroin as
their primary drug.

Stan Satlin, Daytop spokesman, said while "alcohol and marijuana are
usually in the mix no matter what," the other drugs kids get hooked on seem
to rotate yearly. Lately, he said, methamphetamine and especially
prescription drug use appear to be on the rise. But, he said, "we're not
seeing a significant increase in heroin at all."

During his rounds trying to help out addicts, Allen said he has noticed
that especially over the past four years, he's seen a large increase in the
number of Russian immigrants, most males ages 18 to 30, from Brooklyn
becoming addicted to heroin. And in Manhattan "I've seen more middle class,
white kids. They are experimenting with heroin more than ever."

An 18-year-old who dropped out of a prominent New York City high school two
years ago after going into drug rehabilitation said only a handful of kids
at any given school are into heroin and that in general other students tend
to "look down on kids who do it. You're more of a degenerate if you're
doing heroin."

But heroin is cheap, $10 a bag, and readily available if you know the right
crowd and you have the inclination, according to the teen, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity and has since graduated from another high school.

"The problem in New York City," said the teen, "is it's easier for them
(high school students) to pick up a bag of heroin than a pack of cigarettes
because drug dealers don't ask for ID."

Staff Writer Karen Freifeld contributed to this report.