THE NEW HEROIN

San Francisco drug experts fear that a new, deadly wave of Afghan heroin
believed to be headed for The City could hold devastating consequences for
addicts here.

The U.S. State Department last month reported that the Taliban is selling
off vast quantities of potent opium and that the resulting pure strain of
heroin is headed for American cities.

The massive stockpile of narcotics could hit San Francisco late this winter
or next spring. If it does, it could spell disaster for a city already in
the throes of a heroin epidemic.

More available heroin will mean an immediate and drastic drop in the street
price of the drug, health officials and treatment providers say. They warn
this will translate to more emergency-room visits for addicts and more
overdose deaths, which already account for nearly a third of all premature
deaths in San Francisco each year.

"The cheaper the heroin, the more inherent danger we see of overdoses,"
warns Bryan Oley of DanceSafe, a national nonprofit organization offering
harm-reduction services.

World law enforcment agencies say the Taliban is releasing tons of opium
through intricate drug-smuggling webs traversing Central Asia, the Baltic
states and the former Soviet republics. The stockpiles are the product of
huge bumper crops stored before the Taliban cut back on opium production
June.

But now the Taliban is in need of money to buy weapons to fight a guerrilla
war against allied forces that include most of the Western countries
struggling with large-scale heroin addiction, including the United States.

The product of their opium stash, called "Heroin No. 4" by international
drug police, is a white powder that is 80 percent pure, according to recent
reports in The Economist.

The flood of cheap, high quality heroin may be on its way to a city that
Darryl Burton of The City's Department of Public Health calls "already
overwhelmed by heroin addiction."

San Francisco is feeling the social impact of heroin addiction now. The
"walking dead," as addicts are sometimes referred to, are fixtures roaming
many of The City's streets. Their visibly desperate, gaunt figures haunt
pockets of the Haight, Tenderloin, mid-Market and Mission, which have been
seemingly transformed over the years by a crippling combination of drugs,
alcohol and poverty.

Local residents complain the location of treatment-service providers in
those areas makes them virtual havens for addicts. And added to their lure
is the ease with which junkies can get lost among the rest of The City's
down-and-out.

Robert Potter, a three-year resident of the Haight, says he's noticed more
young addicts in his neighborhood lately. "I usually step over them on my
way to work every morning. This whole neighborhood changes when the sun goes
down and the tourists leave. You'll see kids talking to themselves or
nodding off on the street or on the bus, tracks up and down their arms.

"It's creepy."

Heroin is not a recreational drug, and for most users, not a social one. Its
sedative and euphoric effects, and especially the symptoms of drug
withdrawal, make leading any semblance of a normal life impossible for most
users. As use continues, tolerance increases and so does the amount of
heroin needed to attain the same high. Heroin itself becomes a lifestyle and
life, an endless cycle of scoring and using to feed an ever-growing hunger.

The arrival of the Taliban's heroin will make it even worse.

"For sure, the amount addicts would use would increase," says Greg Hayner,
chief pharmacist for the substance-abuse division of the Haight Ashbury Free
Medical Clinic, one of a handful of private agencies in San Francisco
offering services to addicts.

Hayner and other providers fear the arrival of stronger and even cheaper
heroin will wreak havoc on agencies like HAFMC, whose services are already
stretched to the limit.

Hayner says there has been a shortage of treatment slots for some time now
and that at any one time, there are at least a thousand people in San
Francisco waiting to receive drug treatment. These agencies simply do not
have the available resources to handle the increased demand for their
services that might accompany the drug's arrival.

Even before the new Afghan heroin hits The City, local government, law
enforcement and treatment-service providers have been unable to make more
than a small dent in San Francisco's growing heroin problem, due in large
part to the ongoing influx of cheap, black tar heroin from Mexico, which
currently plagues San Francisco and the rest of the western United States.

This crude, tar-like substance, or "chiva," as it's often referred to, is
deadly potent. Its lower purity means it has to be "run" or injected.

The "china white" or powder form of the drug that East Coast junkies enjoy
comes from Southeast and Southwest Asia.

While purity varies, that of the powder form tends to be higher, meaning it
can be snorted, smoked or injected. It's the virtual Beluga of heroin, and
exponentially more dangerous, health experts say.

Curious drug-takers who would otherwise be turned off by the very thought of
mainlining heroin can smoke or snort the powder form and thus avoid both the
social stigma attached to intravenous drug use as well as the chance of
contracting syringe-borne diseases.

As funding from local, state and federal sources dwindles, treatment
providers are finding themselves having to depend more and more on private
donations. Now Gov. Gray Davis is calling for further cuts in state
spending, and according to Hayner, social welfare programs like his "usually
fare poorly in such a situation."

Hayner believes the only thing The City can really do is increase treatment
capacity. But he concedes that this is "a dicey proposition with a projected
$100 million shortfall in The City's budget."