HOW GLOBAL HEROIN SHIFTS COULD HIT HOME: THE DOPE ON DOPE

Like the U.S. bombing raids in Afghanistan, another aspect of the war--the
Taliban's reported dumping of stockpiled heroin on the international market
to raise quick cash--has seemed a distant reality on these shores.

The geography that spares Americans from firsthand views of Afghan rubble
and refugees blunts any immediate impact from the heroin glut here, unlike
in some areas of Europe or Southwest Asia where street prices have halved.

Yet early observers warn that the aftermath of September 11 has to affect
U.S. heroin, if not the illicit drug trade at large.

The only question is to what extent.

The level of heroin use in the U.S. has skyrocketed in recent years. There
were an estimated 208,000 users nationwide in 1999, up 300 percent from the
68,000 in 1993, according to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
In New York, DEA heroin seizures have more than tripled since last year,
from 93 kilos intercepted between October 1999 and September 2000 to 315
kilos from October 2000 just through this June. Special Agent Robert Gagne
of the local DEA division attributes the spike not to an unusually large
bust but simply to "more coming in." Cocaine seizures, however, diminished
slightly over the same span--an indication, according to Gagne, that
suppliers have been pushing drug demand toward the more profitable heroin
sector.

Add to the considerable dependency on heroin the psychological blows felt
by nearly everyone here since September 11, says Ethan Nadelmann, executive
director of the Lindesmith Center, a liberal drug policy foundation, and
concerns about use and supply become more acute. Lindesmith is working with
Dr. David Vlahov, director of urban epidemiological studies at the New York
Academy of Medicine, to track how the stresses of terrorism and the economy
are affecting drug users.

Yet unlike in Europe, which gets an estimated 90 percent or more of its
heroin from Afghanistan, the U.S. supply comes in similarly high volume
from Colombia and Mexico. (Although spots along the Eastern seaboard,
especially New York, could get a not insignificant share--in 1997, as much
as 20 percent--from the Afghan region.) So for now, assessing the impact of
Taliban machinations on the domestic heroin market comes largely in
anecdotal or theoretical bits.

One user, a 36-year-old Manhattanite, reports an intriguing change in the
dope available recently.

It's "dark brown" and "has a vinegary smell," unlike the "generally light
beige or off-white" Colombian powder he is used to. The new kind reminds
him of the Iranian stuff he used to buy when he started using 20 years ago.
"I wonder why all of a sudden we're getting this stuff, and if it's from
that part of the world," he says.

While supply from Central Asia may have increased slightly, experts
consider it unlikely that Taliban heroin has suddenly flooded New York's
market. To the contrary, Ric Curtis, anthropology chair at John Jay College
of Criminal Justice, who focuses on drug policy, shares an inverse
hypothesis: The Taliban's stockpile dries up, possibly "within months."
U.S. military efforts destroy or prevent poppy farming in Afghanistan.
European heroin supplies dwindle and prices climb.

The Colombians step in to fill the void, and because of the diversion in
supply, New York prices go up as well.

When prices rise, the size of a bag stays the same, but "what's in the bag
is going to change," says Curtis. The purity of the heroin, at record highs
right now--the DEA's Gagne reports seizing amounts as pure as 95 percent
compared to levels in the teens and twenties a decade ago--would suffer.
"There's more of a chance of poisoning or getting weird cuts," says the
Manhattan user. And for the poorest users, advocates say, having to buy
more to get the same high leads to less spending on food and shelter and
more of an inclination to shoot up than to snort.

With heroin accounting for about one-third of emergency room drug mentions
in New York--11,028 of 31,885 mentions in 2000, according to Department of
Health and Human Services data--any shifts in heroin supply that could lead
to riskier use is troubling.

Prices have already gone up on the other side of the Hudson, according to
one user, a 44-year-old resident of New Brunswick, New Jersey, with a
two-bag-a-day habit.

She says the standard $10 bag now goes for $15, as dealers claim greater
risk from tightened security in the New York area.

Liberal policy advocates worry that more law enforcement following
September 11 will hurt the most vulnerable users.

Sellers, despite what they might tell customers, will remain largely
untouched or even find greater freedom as authorities focus on terrorism,
advocates theorize. But street users risk more chance encounters with
police on anti-terrorism patrol.

While NYPD drug arrests dropped sharply in the weeks immediately following
the terrorist attacks—down to 17 percent of the number in the same period
the previous year—they are going up, from 261 between September 10 and 16
to 933 two weeks ago.

"Poor people of color" will be the primary victims of both rising prices
and increased profiling or punitiveness, says user advocate Donald Grove of
Harm Reduction Coalition, as they are already disproportionately
impoverished and imprisoned on drug charges.

Yet most of the anticipated consequences of actions thousands of miles away
are still just that, anticipated. As with the far-off bombing, the current
debates at home over heroin and Afghanistan deal more with perception than
with hard circumstances.

Government leaders have linked the war on drugs with the war against
terrorism--regardless of reports that the Northern Alliance, U.S. allies,
also relies on heroin funds.

Congressman Rob Portman, a co-chairman of House Speaker Dennis Hastert's
antidrug task force, was quoted in a recent Cincinnati Post article
headlined "Patriots Don't Use Heroin" saying, "By Americans spending money
on their drug habits, we are helping to support the Taliban government,
which protects terrorism."

In response to the government's spin, Common Sense for Drug Policy, a
liberal advocacy group in D.C., is running an ad in major opinion journals
asking: "Could a regulated and controlled model for soft drugs similar to
our approach with alcohol and for hard drugs similar to prescription drugs
stop the flow of illegal drug profits?" Indeed, says Kevin Zeese, president
of Common Sense, the only way to cut funding to the Taliban and other
suppliers is to remove the "illegal" from the drug trade.

Critics of the government's $12 billion-a-year antidrug effort, including
the authors of a March 2001 report commissioned by the White House itself,
say authorities know far too little about players and tactics in the
international market to cut off drugs effectively at their source.

Rather, say legalizers--who mostly do not advocate a dope free-for-all, but
rather regulation by prescription and other controls--the focus should be
on realistically managing demand.

One government program in Switzerland, where some users receive heroin
prescriptions and clean equipment, has helped reduce drug-related crime and
improve addicts' health.

Zeese predicts the Afghan heroin glut and probable increased use could lead
to serious consideration of the Swiss model in the rest of Europe. "They're
a lot more pragmatic and smarter than we are," he says.

Such reforms will not likely fly in today's law-and-order U.S. If anything,
the injection of Taliban heroin into the Bush administration's crusade
against evil only burns the mark of sin darker on the flesh of drug users.
"They've already been under attack and have been for a long time," says
advocate Grove. "Now, they're being called accomplices to terrorism."