More Young People Using Heroin
By ANDREW CANGIANO
The face of heroin use is changing – both in Monmouth County and across the country.
The increased availability of a more potent form of the drug has allowed a younger population to use heroin as a recreational drug.
Its pure, its cheap, and its everywhere, said Ed Higgins, executive director of Jersey Shore Addiction Services in Asbury Park, who has worked with heroin addicts for 33 years.
And due to the increased purity of the drug, Higgins said it is possible to ingest heroin in new ways.
It can be snorted like cocaine or mixed with marijuana and smoked.
The increased purity and new methods of ingestion has led the drug to be introduced to white, middle to upper-middle class communities and to be billed as a recreational drug, Higgins said.
This had led to what Higgins said is a worse case scenario, as the drug has reached a younger, more affluent population.
This is like my worst nightmare, he said. Experimentation is beginning in the middle or intermediate schools. Were seeing people in later years of high school or even going to college are addicted to heroin.
Mary Pat Angelini, executive director and CEO of Prevention First in Ocean Township, said there is more experimentation with heroin among high school aged students than in the past.
She said one of the dangers of the new uses of the narcotic is that young people errantly believe that if they snort or smoke the drug, rather than taking it intravenously, they will not become addicted.
Monmouth County Prosecutor Louis Valentin expressed a similar view, as he said young people are under the false impression that because the drug can be snorted, it is safer and therefore acceptable for recreational use.
The increased availability of this high purity heroin which can effectively be snorted, has given rise to a new, younger user population, Valentin said. Our investigation and our work in this area has led to a noticeable increase in heroin use by younger users in schools.
A Local Problem
Based on a December 2005 survey conducted of students in the Ocean Township School district by the townships human services department, a little over one percent of children under the age of 18 have used heroin at least once.
The survey polled all of the students in the sixth, ninth, and 12th grades, for a total of 861 students, about attitudes and behaviors, including drug use.
Richard Ponton, the director of Ocean Townships Human Services Department, said that heroin is a growing problem in the area and that the availability of the drug is at the crux of the problem.
Ocean Township Superintendent of Schools Thomas Pagano said the findings of the survey do not surprise him.
I am not surprised by any type of substance abuse given the times we are living in, Pagano said. We are aware of what is being used.
Pagano said there are different reasons for the increase in substance abuse among students.
Some students havent got much of anything else going on in their lives, and some have too much, Pagano said. And some are money makers, they are not users, they are sellers.
We are always trying to do a better job of insulating them from such use, he added. If a student comes forward and says they want to stop, we will help that student. Of course if they are distributing inside or outside the school, we are concerned. We would take disciplinary action against them.
Ponton said the townships police department has been very aggressive in enforcing drug laws against both dealers and users.
He said the D.A.R.E (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program is taught to township students in the sixth grade and that substance abuse is part of the curriculum at the middle and high school levels.
Any student who is found to be using drugs or alcohol in school must go to early intervention, Ponton said.
How does Heroin Get Here?
There is a reason New Jersey has the purest heroin in the nation, Higgins said.
Traditionally, the drug came from southeast Asia or the Middle East, coming through Europe and eventually reaching the United States, he said.
The purity of the drug was very low – on average less than 20% pure in the late 1970s and less than 10 percent pure in the early 80s, Higgins said.
Due to the low purity, heroin had to be injected intravenously in order to feel the effects.
However, in recent years the purity of heroin has increased dramatically as it is has a significantly shorter route to travel to reach America.
Higgins said that as a result of pressure from the United States on Columbia to stop growing the cocoa plant, which is used to make cocaine, many Columbians started growing poppy – the plant from which heroin is derived.
Right now theres a direct connection from Columbia to the Northeast corridor of the United States with the purest heroin in the world, he said.
Based on figures from Newark and other cities in New Jersey, heroin purity in the state was about 72 percent in 2003, Higgins said. In nearby New York City, heroin purity averaged 63 percent that year. In other major cities around the country, such as Baltimore (22 percent) and Los Angeles and San Francisco (each less than 20 percent), purity levels were far lower.
Prosecutor Valentin said New Jersey has had the number one heroin in terms of purity for the last three years in a row.
This new, increasingly purer heroin causes a quicker addiction and the need to use the narcotic more frequently, Higgins said.
A new group of users
According to Higgins, a significant decrease in the age of those admitted for treatment of heroin use to Jersey Shore Addiction Services has occurred over the last decade.
In 1995 the average age of admission to the clinic was 26 years old. By 2000 the age had dropped to 23 and in 2005 it had fallen to just 20 years old, Higgins said.
Monmouth and Ocean County have the highest percentage of 18 to 23-year-old caucasians admitted to treatment for heroin use in the state, he said.
Often times, treating this younger group can be difficult, particularly on an outpatient basis, Higgins said.
Ideally for every one of these individuals between [ages] 18-23, we would like be able to get them into a residential program for 6 months or longer, he said.
Higgins said inpatient, 24 hour a day treatment is most effective for young people, but limited space and funding for clinics often pose obstacles.
The reality, in New Jersey, is we don’t have the bed capacity, he said. We dont have the commercial health insurance reimbursement required.
As a result, programs like his are forced to be creative in finding ways to treat patients on an outpatient basis – a method which is usually not very successful with young people.
Addicts who are treated on an outpatient basis end up with the same peer group and the same set of pressures, Higgins said.
We know a lot more about treatments today than we did 33 years ago, he said. Its just we cant effectively treat this younger group on an outpatient basis.
Response from local police
Officials from local police departments have confirmed that the use of heroin has become an issue of concern over the last half decade.
Asbury Park Police Captain Anthony Salerno said when he first joined the department eight years ago the heroin problem was fading, but that the drug has become popular again in recent years.
Its quite a disturbing trend, he said.
The departments street crimes unit has stepped up its surveillance, enforcement and information gathering of heroin related crimes, Salerno said.
Neptune City Dt./Sgt. James Clayton, who has been with the police department for 13 years, said there has been an increase in arrests for heroin possession over the last five years, whereas previously most drug arrests had been for marijuana and crack/cocaine.
Ocean Township Police Sgt. Joseph Pangaro said over the last few years the number of heroin arrests made by the department has increased dramatically and that the heroin epidemic is growing.
He said large numbers of residents from Monmouth and Ocean Counties travel to Asbury Park and Ocean Township to purchase heroin, using Route 35, Route 18, Route 66, and the Parkway as conduit roads.
Based on numerous arrests made by Ocean police, the problem crosses all socioeconomic levels and age groups, Pangaro said.
He said one of the trends the department has seen is that people are purchasing the drugs in the area and using them at local roadside areas, such as retail parking lots.
Another trend is return customers who pool their money and buy greater amounts of the narcotic to cut down on the number of trips and decrease the risk of arrest.
The departments special assignment unit, which focuses on quality of life crimes and narcotics violations, has taken a pro-active approach in combating the problem, Pangaro said.
Due to the departments pro-active approach, the number of heroin arrests in retail areas has gone down, he said.
Pangaro said the townships department of human services will help anyone who admits to having a substance abuse problem, but that the police department has a zero tolerance policy towards drug use.
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