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 veggie
Registered: 07/26/04
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 [MI] Three decades after Saginaw's deadly 'heroin wars,' drug making comeback 
#15235889 - 10/16/11 10:58 PM (1 year, 7 months ago) |
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Three decades after Saginaw's deadly 'heroin wars,' police say drug making comeback
October 16, 2011 - mlive.com
 SAGINAW — Opiate addict, drug dealer, absentee mother, all-around outlaw.
All might have described Linda Gilliland during the deadly decade some refer to as Saginaw’s “heroin wars” of the 1970s.
The violence surrounding that era’s heroin trade far exceeded modern-day crime figures for Saginaw, a city the FBI has ranked either as the nation’s first- or second-most violent municipality of its size over the past 10 years.
“It was a dark time,” Gilliland, now a quarter-century sober, said of the ’70s.
Since then, both she and Saginaw have calmed down.
Police here say Saginaw’s heroin wars ended in the early 1980s, when national efforts to cut down international drug smuggling eroded the supply that fueled the region’s epidemic. Violence seemed to slow with it. The number of homicides, which reached 44 in 1975, fell to a 45-year low of eight last year.
But something has happened in recent years with the addicts who seek support at Saginaw Township’s DOT Caring Centers Inc., where Gilliland, 63, works as a clinical supervisor.
It’s the same development law enforcers say they’ve noticed on the streets of Saginaw. That old, familiar darkness is slowly re-emerging, they say.
Heroin is making a comeback.
The dark journey
Saginaw Police Sgt. Kevin Revard noticed heroin’s gradual return as the hardcore drug of choice for city addicts in 2005 as it began surpassing the popularity of crack cocaine.
“In (the early 2000s), there was maybe one (heroin overdose) per year,” Revard said. “Now there’s five, six a year.”
While Revard’s jurisdiction remains within Saginaw’s borders, the problem extends beyond city limits, he said.
Police in recent years have busted addicts who traveled from as far as Sault Ste. Marie and as near as Freeland for a taste of Saginaw’s product, Revard said.
“Flint and Detroit have the same problem, I think,” he said, “but we’re probably the farthest north where you can get it in Michigan. So we get a lot of people coming down here looking for it.”
The nature of a heroin high attracts a different kind of clientele compared to users of other hardcore drugs, Revard said.
“Predominantly, it’s young people, between 16 to their mid-20s,” he said. “Mostly white kids.”
Statistics illustrating the return of heroin locally are difficult to come by, both police and drug addiction counselors say.
Saginaw police files lump heroin cases with other drug-related incidents, while records at DOT Caring Centers show broad characterizations of its patients, grouping heroin addicts with abusers of other opiates.
But the statistics relating to that opiate family — including some prescription pain medications — give experts the best indication of the drug’s re-emergence, experts say.
DOT Caring Centers workers estimate the number of their patients hooked on opiates increased by 80 percent in the past decade, Gilliland said.
Eight out of every 10 patients there is an opiate addict, Gilliland said, and half of those are hooked on heroin.
U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency statistics show 7 million Americans abuse prescription drugs — more than heroin, cocaine, hallucinogens, Ecstasy and inhalants combined. That represents an 80 percent increase in abuse of prescription opiates, such as OxyContin and Vicodin in the past 11 years, DEA figures show.
Another indicator: The state Department of Community Health reports the number of opiate addicts receiving state-subsidized methadone treatment rocketed from 8,758 people in 2000 to 19,806 last year.
“(Prescription drug use) has really been the driving force behind the increase in the heroin problem we’ve seen here and across the country,” said Rich Isaacson, a special agent with the DEA’s Detroit office. “The way Vicodin and OxyContin affects the body is the same way heroin affects it.”
Prescription drug abusers often graduate to heroin once their tolerance dulls the prescription pill’s high, he said. Often, heroin also is cheaper.
Saginaw police say most addicts purchase $20 heroin “bundles”— often packaged inside folded-up pieces of paper about the size of lottery tickets — which Revard estimates can satisfy an addict anywhere from a few hours to a few days.
Isaacson said, by comparison, one OxyContin pill sells for up to $50 on the streets.
The increase in prescription drug abuse partly is a product of “unscrupulous doctors or pharmacists trying to make a cheap buck” by selling legal drugs to the black market, along with the availability of pills over the Internet, Isaacson said.
“But, also, when you look at anonymous surveys out there, teenagers say they get their pills from friends and families,” Isaacson said.
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