Soaring Opium Output, Purity of Product Could Spawn a New Crisis

Spurred by a worldwide “explosion” in opium production, heroin of unprecedented purity has started to show up on the streets of some East Coast cities, prompting growing fears that the nation may be on the verge of a new wave of heroin abuse that could rival the crack epidemic, federal officials said Tuesday.

David Westrate, assistant administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said a study of street samples in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Newark, N.J., found that bags of Southeast Asian heroin were being sold at average purities of between 48% and 51%--more than five times the potency traditionally injected by heroin addicts.

The high purities are particularly frightening because they make it much easier to smoke heroin--a practice being reported with increasing frequency among crack addicts seeking to modulate the intense highs of their crack use, Westrate told the House Select Committee on Narcotics.

Westrate said the “driving stimulus” behind the heroin revival has been a global glut caused by dramatic surges in opium production in Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia and Mexico. “All three growing areas are going full blast,” he said.

The problem is further complicated because the United States has little or no influence in most of the countries where the increases are occurring--Laos, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Afghanistan and Iran, said Melvyn Levitksy, assistant secretary for state for international narcotics matters.