Heroin expanding to rural areas

By Mike Ford, The Delphos Herald
Published:  Monday, April 28, 2008 (2 months, 3 weeks ago)
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As incidents of heroin use are discovered in rural areas such as Kenton and Waynesfield, those in law enforcement are becoming alarmed. Though regional usage remains low, the drug’s statewide resurgence is reflected in the recent overdose deaths of teenagers from Lakeview and McGuffey.
Delphos Police Chief Dave Wagner says heroin abuse exists in Delphos.
“We have picked up reports of between 6 and 12 people here who have, apparently, been abusing heroin. Now, what the heck’s with that? In Delphos? That was always a New York City kind of thing,” he said.
Law enforcement officials agree: west-central Ohio is seeing an influx of heroin from Dayton. Wagner says it is not being sold in Delphos and local users are buying it in Lima.
“They’ve got it coming through Dayton — that’s the major heroin source for our area. I’ve been a cop for 33 years and suddenly there’s an increase in this stuff. We never ran in to heroin like this. Now, what is going on? To me, there’s got to be something going on somewhere,” Wagner said.
What area narcotics officers report seeing is brown powder and black tar heroin from Mexico that is trafficked across the country toward Dayton and Columbus.
Mike Vorhees is the Grand Lake Task Force field commander in Auglaize County. The heroin increase there is similar to what Wagner reports.
“Our task force works Mercer and Auglaize counties. Mercer just had an overdose not too long ago and when we interviewed the gentleman, he said he had gotten it from Dayton. We’re seeing a little bit of increase; we’re still in the single digits and I hope it stays that way. We’re not in the panic stage yet,” he said.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol reports 1,296 drug violations between January and March. Many of them are in metropolitan regions and along major highways. Much of the heroin from Mexico enters Ohio through the Tri-State region and along I-70 in the Miami Valley.
An Indiana police officer recently stopped a pickup truck with California license plates near Indianapolis. The vehicle was reported to contain $1 million worth of heroin and the driver claimed Columbus as his target.
Lima police were recently notified by family members when the bodies of Byron Parsons and Roslyn Downton were found in a west-side residence. Though toxicology tests are unfinished, police believe heroin use was involved.
Law enforcement reports the drug to cost anywhere from $80-$135 per gram. Though Parsons and Downton were middle-aged, statewide trends indicate most users are younger.
Amanda Conn Starner of the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services works with researchers who track statewide trends.
“We’re seeing a couple of trends in Ohio. One of them is heroin and we’re seeing it among 18- to 24-year-old middle- to upper-class white kids. They start off snorting it, then injecting it and they’re using black tar or brown heroin,” she said.
Perhaps one of the reasons the regional increase is less than an explosion stems from Lima being, what Wagner calls, the “cocaine capital of Ohio.”
According to Matt Treglia of the West Central Ohio Crime Task Force, there is an abundance of cocaine in the Lima area which prevents heroin and crystal meth from becoming more widespread.
“In 2007, we had about 4 or 5 heroin cases of 350-400. We don’t have a big problem with heroin because we have too much cocaine. That’s the same reason we don’t have a lot of meth. There’s so much cocaine in Lima and Allen County that it floods the other drugs out,” he said.
Law enforcement in Van Wert and Putnam counties also report trace amounts of residents “dancing” with “Mr. Brownstone.”
As heroin addiction lurks, price and availability are becoming linked to another drug trend. The abuse of prescription medications also has law enforcement on alert. Vorhees says there are two pain relievers that can mirror heroin’s high.
“We’re starting to see more heroin and if people can’t get it, they get their fix on something similar to heroin. OxyContin and Dilaudid are prescription pain medications we’re seeing a rise in. We had a case late last year of a woman who couldn’t get heroin, so she got her fix on Dilaudid pills because it gives a similar result,” he said.

Look for a story on prescription medication abuse in an upcoming edition of the Delphos Herald.

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