LOCAL USE OF HEROIN IS RISING, STUDY SAYS

N.Y. Group Cites Sharp Jump in the Richmond Area's Treatment Rate

Cheap, potent heroin that for $10 can provide a lengthy high has led
to a surge in heroin use in the area, a report from a New York
research group indicates.

The report from the not-for-profit group National Development and
Research Institutes Inc. was based on interviews with
addiction-treatment professionals and others in the Richmond area and
interviews with residents including some drug users who attended focus
groups.

The research group is tracking injection-drug trends and related HIV
infections in 96 cities across the country. It focused on Richmond
after connecting with local officials looking for help to research
local drug-abuse trends and treatment needs.

Among the report's local findings: There has been a sizable increase
since 1999 in the number of people seeking treatment for heroin
addiction at publicly funded treatment programs.

According to the report, heroin-related admissions to programs in the
Richmond-Petersburg area increased from 560 admissions in 1993 to
3,772 admissions in 2000, with the biggest spike from 1999 to 2000.

Besides price, another possible reason for the increased use is image.
According to the researchers, young heroin users interviewed had the
attitude they would rather be "dope fiends" than "crackheads," the
latter perceived as the "bottom of the pit."

"It's weird you do hear stuff like that," said James C. May, director
of substance abuse services at the Richmond Behavioral Health Authority.

"Some of the younger generation, they were growing up when people were
dissing crackheads. . . . Now this drug [heroin] is classy, in a way."

May said the numbers probably underestimate the problem.

"They don't all come for treatment," he said.

According to the report, there has been a "substantial" increase in
use of injected heroin among low-income black adolescents and young
adults who live in Richmond and in affluent white adolescents and
young adults who live in the neighboring counties.

"My counterparts [in the suburbs] are absolutely saying there has been
this dramatic increase in heroin," May said. "It's not just Richmond.
It's the counties as well. We have all had to grow our methadone
response capabilities."

Denise Clayborn, who monitors state-run opiate treatment programs,
said new heroin users who have not yet developed tolerance may be able
to get high with $10 worth of heroin.

"That may be possible, but that is not the people we are seeing in our
clinics. The people we are seeing in our clinics, they have
hundreds-of-dollars-a-day habits," she said.

The report looks at social and economic factors in Richmond that may
be contributing to drug abuse. Among them: loss of a well-paying
manufacturing and construction jobs available to people with less
education, and inadequate public transportation to get to suburban
jobs.

In the focus groups, public housing complexes were viewed as so "drug
infested" that they were like gruesome human "science projects" to see
how people cope in bad conditions.

The report points out that injection drug use was already rising when
Richmond began to see more killings, but focus-group participants see
a connection between the rate and turf battles for drug distribution
territory.

The report does not go into depth about suburban heroin use that was
to be in a subsequent report that is now on hold because of funding,
said one of the researchers.

"We may never get to do those studies of the suburbs," said Samuel R.
Friedman, senior research fellow at the New York research group. The
group did get additional funding from the National Institute on Drug
Abuse to collect data on the 96 cities over a number of years.

Officials from Richmond and neighboring counties Chesterfield, Hanover
and Henrico that make up the Richmond Metropolitan Area Commission on
Substance Abuse Treatment and Prevention are using the data in an assessment.

A report from the commission is expected in about two weeks. Among the
findings in a preliminary draft:

All the community services boards reported an increase from 2002 to
2003 for people in treatment who identified heroin as their main drug.
Juvenile arrest rates for drug/narcotics offenses were higher in
Hanover and Chesterfield than the other localities. Knowing the true
prevalence of substance abuse is hindered by the lack of data.