MORE SYNTHETIC DRUGS, HEROIN SEEP INTO MAINE

SKOWHEGAN The image of a brown-eyed, curly-haired girl is etched in the
memory of Lt. Carl Gottardi II.

Gottardi, a burly veteran drug investigator at Somerset County Sheriff's
Department, was investigating the death of a woman from an overdose earlier
this month, when he heard a dull thumping noise.

Following the noise through a doorway into a small darkened room, he found
the girl sitting on the floor banging her head against the wall, barely
eight feet from her mother's body.

She stared at him, clutching her doll. He picked her up and put her on a
bed surrounded by pillows. Gottardi can still remember the tune from the
show Sesame Street that played when he pulled the string on her doll.

Even two years ago, such a scene would have been almost unimaginable in
rural Maine "a child left motherless when her opiate addicted mother died
of an overdose.

A rising tide of heroin and synthetic opiate abuse is reaching into the
most rural parts of the state, driving up crime rates, destroying families
and killing users.

Waterville police have made the largest seizures of heroin in the city's
history in the last six months.

Lt. Dennis Passmore of the Augusta Police Department characterizes the
drug's growth as an epidemic.

Kennebec County Sheriff Everett B. Flannery worries the drug will get out
of control at the high school level this year.

One way to track the progress of the drug use is to count the bodies left
in its wake.

Already this year in Kennebec County, there have been four confirmed
accidental drug overdoses that involved either an opiate or synthetic
opiate drug known as an opioid and the Maine Medical Examiner's Office has
many cases which are still undetermined.

There was only one accidental overdose death related to opiates or
synthetic opiates in each of the past two years.

Somerset County has had one confirmed accidental methadone overdose so far
this year. For the last two years, there were no accidental overdose deaths
cause by opiates or synthetic drugs that mimic opiates.

But the body count is only the tip of the iceberg. Much of the suffering is
hard to quantify, the destruction of families and relationships as the
lives of addicts are consumed by the need for the drug.

Gottardi said that one of the most disturbing things he sees while
executing drug search warrants in the condition of the children.

"They don't care for the animals. They don't care for their kids," Gottardi
said of the addicts.

The young girl he encountered when her mother died is now in state custody
and will probably have a chance for a normal life. But for an expanding new
generation of addicts, life will never be the same.

"We have young boys, young girls, men and women doing everything from
breaking into places to prostitution to selling everything they own "
throwing their whole lives away because they need the drug," he said.

Teen users are snorting the narcotic under the false assumption that the
drug is addictive only when injected.

Synthetic opiate drugs are also luring new users who assume a
pharmaceutical drug is safe and not addictive. Once hooked, however, they
often shift to cheaper heroin.

And police and treatment centers are unable to keep pace with the growth of
the drug.

Drug Investigations

Maine Drug Enforcement Agency Director Roy McKinney believes the flow of
opiates into the state is still increasing, but he said his agents are
already conducting as many drug investigations as they can.

One reason for the spread of heroin is its purity.

"In the 1960s, we were talking single digit (purity) heroin. Now we are
talking 75 percent or better," he said.

And unlike crack cocaine, another highly addictive substance, heroin is
spreading well beyond metropolitan areas into the smallest communities in
Maine.

Young people also believe that they cannot get addicted to prescription drugs.

"We are hearing about situations involving children. They steal
prescription drugs from the family medicine chest, take them to a party and
put them in a bowl and everybody consumes them," he said.

Kimberly Johnson, director of the Office of Substance Abuse, said she
believes the growth in prescription opiates such as OxyContin beginning in
1995 helped pave the way for heroin.

"It is easy for someone to start with prescription drugs and develop a very
expensive habit quickly," she said.

Heroin is, by comparison, cheap and available.

And once somebody starts using opiates, she said the onset of addiction is
rapid.

The number of opiate addicts seeking treatment has begun to trend downward
in some counties in the last fiscal year, but Johnson said she believed
that short-term trend is primarily caused by a lack of available slots in
treatment centers in all areas of the state.

Heroin addiction is treated primarily through long-term residential
treatment and methadone clinics.

In 1995, 2 percent of the admissions to state-funded treatment centers were
for heroin or synthetic opiate addiction. In the last fiscal year, 12
percent of admissions were for opiate addiction " an increase of 600 percent.

"We still aren't meeting the need," she said.

In Waterville, Police Chief John Morris said he believes the problem is
growing for several reasons, including the fact that people have forgotten
the devastation the drug left in its wake in the 1960s.

The relative cheapness of heroin also makes selling the drug good business.

Dealers can buy "bags" "from a 10th to a 40th of a gram of heroin " in
Massachusetts for $5 each and sell them in Maine for between $25 and $40, a
mark-up of as much as 800 percent.

Because the drug is so powerfully addictive, with a few free samples
dealers can create a loyal customer who will quickly progress from using a
bag or two a day to 25 or more bags.

To support his or her habit, that new customer will often be forced to
either deal the drug, resort to prostitution or crimes like burglary and theft.

Waterville Arrests

Detective Sgt. John Gould of the Waterville Police Department said his
department has made about 10 heroin-related arrests in the past 12 months.

One man arrested this spring for stealing from jewelry stores and other
property crimes said he was doing it to support his heroin habit.

"He said if we hadn't gotten him when we did, his next step would have been
robbing banks," Gould said.

In Augusta, Passmore said officers have seen a change in drugs on the streets.

"Five years ago, it was primarily marijuana, some cocaine and heroin was
almost nonexistent. Now, we are primarily working heroin and some cocaine,"
Passmore said.

Many of the users Passmore's officers are arresting are using 25 bags or
more a day, he said.

He said the drug trend is increasing the number of property crimes in the
city and it is shifting his department's priorities.

Sheriff Flannery said the public needs to be aware of the potential of the
heroin problem.

"If we don't get this (message) out there, it is going to creep up on
people," he said.

In 24 years of law enforcement, Flannery said he has seen drugs like LSD or
PCP become fashionable, and then fall out of favor, but the demand for
heroin shows no sign of declining.

Cheap and relatively pure, it is literally flooding the market.

"Right now it would be easier for me to walk out the door and purchase
heroin than it would be to buy marijuana," he said.

Flannery estimated that about 30 percent of the inmates at the Kennebec
County Correction Facility have an opiate addiction. Two or three years ago
few if any inmates had an opiate addiction, he said.

He said he wants the public to take the problem more seriously.

"It is seeping into high school and I am afraid it is going to get out of
control at the high school level. I pray to God that doesn't happen."