Heroin: The Return of an Old Enemy

Sept. 29--ALBANY -- In a "spectacular raid" by Albany police at 45 Dongan Ave., Goldie Miller was charged with drug trafficking and five vagrant addicts were also arrested after the cops seized from an "opium den" two bottles of heroin, seven bottles of morphine, several packages of cocaine, opium and hypodermic needles and scales.

The drug bust made front-page news in the Times Union. The story was published on Aug. 14, 1914.

The day before, Aug. 13, 1914, Albany cops shut down another urban opium den at 47 Market St. and arrested three people, according to the Times Union.

The spike in heroin use that has surged across the Capital Region in the past year or two has caused scores of deaths from lethal overdoses, strained emergency rooms and treatment facilities, challenged law enforcement to try to cut into its shadowy supply line and sowed widespread panic in affluent suburban areas where it is hitting hardest. Some have even labeled heroin a public health "epidemic."

But it is not a new problem.

It is clearly harming a different demographic in this recent iteration. But no local agencies have yet crunched the numbers or extracted heroin from more general narcotics statistics, so a clear-cut statistical portrait on the rise or extent of the problem does not exist.

But there is widespread consensus that heroin has exploded in the past two years, deadlier than earlier editions because of its increased potency and the fact that it is being cut with dangerous compounds such as fentanyl that contribute to its lethality.

There is no denying that the obituary pages in recent months have presented heroin addiction's steady death toll in a hushed, elegaic and rarely explicitly named family heartbreak that has cut down dozens of young lives from teens to late-20s.

"Heroin was around when I started in 1973 and it's back with a vengeance," said Colonie Police Chief Steve Heider, a 41-year veteran of the force. "The difference is that it's not being dealt to men in their 30s and 40s on a few urban street corners. This time around, it's all over suburbia and it's killing teenagers. I consider it an epidemic."

Heider said there have been several fatal overdoses in Colonie in the past year, between ages 18 and 59. The town's paramedics responded to more than 200 opioid overdose calls in 2013, double from the year before.

"But we're not going to solve the heroin problem by arresting our way out of it," he said. "It's truly a social problem hitting all facets of society."

Heider offered one arrest incident that highlighted the severity of the heroin problem and its intractable nature. Two paramedics recently used naloxone, known as Narcan, to revive a young man who had overdosed on heroin. "He was basically dead, was brought back to life and treated at Albany Med," Heider said. "He was arrested 11 hours later, with EKG electrodes still taped to his chest, trying to steal an air-conditioning unit from a rooftop to sell the copper to buy more bags of heroin."

Most experts attribute the rise in heroin use, in part, to a law that took effect in New York state in August 2013 known as I-STOP, Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing. It severely reduced the flow of prescriptions for opioids such as Oxycontin, which drove up the price for the highly addictive painkiller pills and caused addicts to switch to an illicit street market for heroin. A single-dose bag of heroin can be bought for $7 to $10 today, compared to $40 to $60 for an Oxy pill on the black market.

"Heroin is no different from other drugs and we'll never be able to choke off the supply of drugs in this country," said Albany Police Chief Steven Krokoff, a 22-year veteran. "We may disrupt the supply briefly, but that's not as effective as attacking both the supply and demand side. Those dual strategies that also focus on increasing treatment resources are far more effective."

Krokoff said the city's role in the heroin trade is more of a distribution center than a repository of addiction. "A lot more heroin is coming up from New York City, hitting Albany briefly and being distributed throughout the Northeast," he said. "Luckily, we don't have a high level of street violence like we saw in the turf wars at the peak of the crack cocaine epidemic in the late-1980s. It was easier to bust crack dealers with pagers on street corners back then. Now, they're using smartphones and texting. We're having to upgrade our own technology to combat it."

Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple, a 27-year veteran, recalled working at the Albany County jail during the height of the crack epidemic. "The jail was overflowing and so overcrowded, we cobbled new tiers together with plywood, chains and a padlock," he said. "That was real bad. But young people weren't dying then. We didn't have overdose deaths with crack like we're seeing with heroin. They're cutting heroin with fentanyl now and that's an ultimate recipe for death."

Even with recent large, high-profile heroin busts, Apple said it is a short-term strategy. "For a very short time, we put a dent in the supply line but we did not kill it," he said. "Somebody else stepped in fairly quickly to fill that void. I am encouraged that we're getting good coordination and cooperation from all the agencies on the local and state level. I am somewhat frustrated with the response from the federal level. I'd like to see them doing more."

Apple said his department has had an increase of 17 arrests for criminal sale of heroin in 2012 to 39 arrests in 2014. The total weight and value of heroin seized jumped from 77 grams worth $7,700 in 2012 to 1,636 grams and a $180,000 street value in 2014.

"I've spoken at about 10 community forums this year and everyone realizes heroin is a big problem right now," he said. "We have to do more on the treatment side."

Apple said he is going to increase addiction counseling and other programs to try to reduce high recidivism for the roughly 60 percent of 885 county jail inmates incarcerated for crimes directly and indirectly related to their drug addictions. "The problem is bigger than any one agency," Apple said.

Albany County District Attorney David Soares cautioned against a knee-jerk reaction by well-intentioned lawmakers in response to the heroin rise. "The last time we responded to a heroin problem, in the late-1960s, we got the Rockefeller Drug Laws and that was a failure," Soares said. "I want to be very careful we're not moving in that direction again. This is a supply and demand, market-driven problem. It has to be addressed by the community at large, including parents, schools, the pharmaceutical industry and treatment providers."

Soares said he did not want to diminish the human wreckage of heroin, either. "When you see accidental overdoses becoming a leading cause of death among young people, that's alarming," he said. "It has spawned more crimes of opportunity among addicts, from the 'urban mining' of copper strippers to burglaries. We need a comprehensive response."

Soares said his office is working on a response to the problem that will adopt a harm-reduction approach. It will be announced in November.

Rewind a century ago and opium dens were an alarming local scourge. In the 1960s, heroin was described as "a cancer" on predominantly poor and minority inner-city neighborhoods of Albany, Schenectady and Troy. A young street priest, the Rev. Howard Hubbard, recently retired bishop of the Albany Roman Catholic diocese, founded Hope House in 1967 in Albany's South End in response to what was then being branded a heroin epidemic.

Next month, Hope House will open a new $4.2 million, 20-bed adolescent residential drug treatment facility. It will alleviate a waiting list and double the existing 20-bed facility that treats adolescents between the ages of 13 and 20, a majority of whom are battling addiction to opioids, which includes heroin.

"Our new building is a direct result of the rise in heroin addiction," said Kevin Connally, executive director of Hope House. "Heroin is not new, but it is much purer than it was in the past and it's killing people. It's also hitting a much younger, middle-class population than before."

Local law enforcement suggest that a strong, measured regionally coordinated approach to the heroin problem is required.

"We've never had an epidemic drug problem like we're seeing with heroin. It's the worst I've ever seen because it's now one of the cheapest and most available drugs out there," said Guilderland Police Chief Carol Lawlor, a 36-year veteran. "Part of the problem is that parents don't want to admit their children might be addicted to heroin. Everyone has to work together and take responsibility for the problem. Heroin addiction knows no boundaries."

Lawlor said she is stepping up education and enforcement efforts at the town's middle school and high school and is focusing resources on areas where large numbers of young people congregate such as Crossgates Mall.

"We've had far too many deaths," Lawlor said. "It's time we work together. We can't turn a blind eye to it."

pgrondahl@timesunion.com, 518-454-5623, @PaulGrondahl

Copyright 2014 - Times Union, Albany, N.Y.