Thousands Still in Heroin’s Grip : Narcotics: Cocaine surges in popularity and attention. But county officials say one drug remains a constant problem.

Sandy believed her boyfriend when he told her in May that she could not become addicted to heroin until she had used it at least three months.

But two months later, the 27-year-old Ventura woman was doing anything she needed to for a fix.

She passed $20,000 in bad checks. She sold her possessions. She lured men out of bars so her boyfriend could rob them to support her $450-a-day habit.

“Heroin addicts will do anything,” said Sandy, who began a drug treatment program in August. “Anything.”

Sandy, who along with other heroin users and former addicts interviewed, asked that her last name be withheld, is one of an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 heroin users in Ventura County, according to the county Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs. As classified by the county, heroin users are those who have used the drug intravenously at least once in the past year, department officials said.

While other drugs surge and decline in popularity--and cocaine dominates newspaper headlines--heroin use has remained a constant problem in Ventura County, officials said.

“There has certainly been an increase in cocaine,” said Stephen Kaplan, director of the county Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs. “Underneath all that, there is still the significant problem of heroin.”

Paul Wolfson, 41, a counselor at Oxnard’s 4-year-old Primary Purpose drug and alcohol clinic, said he believes heroin use is increasing and cocaine is losing some of its charm in the ongoing cycle of drug popularity.

Whether it is stable or on the rise, the drug has affected the lives of thousands of county residents.

There is Andy, 30, of Oxnard who started out burglarizing houses to support his heroin habit and later ran two San Bernardino crack houses to get money. There is Dan, a former heroin dealer, who has been on methadone for seven years but still slips back into heroin use “every once in a while.” And there is Mary, a 26-year-old who asked that her name be changed for this story. She is two months pregnant and fighting to stay away from heroin through a methadone maintenance program.

“It’s like the drug takes control of your life,” said Andy, who said he has been free of heroin about a year.

Black tar heroin--90% of the heroin found on county streets--is brought in from Mexico in quantities of about 10 ounces at a time, authorities said.

A heroin “tootsie roll” is often carried by illegal aliens in exchange for transportation into the United States, said Ralph B. Lochridge of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in Los Angeles. The carriers, who generally do not sell the heroin, are paid as “mules” to bring it into Ventura County from Mexico, Lochridge said.

They may hide it in their cars by stashing it in special panels, loading it in the hubcaps or putting it inside a tire and then filling the tire up with air. Others carry it in their pockets or swallow condoms full of the drug, then wait for it to pass from their system after they arrive at their destination, officials said.

A lot of heroin is bound for Oxnard, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department. Users from Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Ojai and Santa Barbara come to Oxnard to buy the drug, sheriff’s officials said.

However, heroin can be bought anywhere in the county, said Sgt. Arnie Aviles of the Sheriff’s Department. One undercover narcotics officer even bought some in the parking lot of the Ventura County Government Center, where the Sheriff’s Department is located, Aviles said.

Heroin, which varies in purity from about 30% to 60%, also is sold through a delivery service, officials said.

A buyer calls a phone number and places an order, Aviles said. The person taking the call either dispatches someone or goes himself to sell the heroin, which is packaged in cellophane.

A 20th to a 30th of a gram of heroin is sold on the streets for about $20, said Detective Tim Combs of the Oxnard Police Department. A gram of heroin can be bought for about $120 on the wholesale level. If the dealer cuts that cocaine into 20 different pieces and sells each one for $20, he makes $400 and nets a $280 profit, Combs said.

Most heroin users deal or steal to support their habits. They may start out with a job, but it usually gets to the point where they can no longer maintain the cost of the habit through regular work, officials said.

Sandy never returned to her job as a computer programmer after her boyfriend, a heroin addict, persuaded her to try the drug.

At first she skipped work because she wanted to stay home and enjoy the feeling of the drug, she said. As she spent time away from work, she grew apprehensive about returning and eventually concentrated her energies on finding ways to pay for her next fix.

She said she tried to stop taking the drug at one point but became so sick with withdrawal symptoms in 36 hours that she began using again.

“Heroin is the most absolute killer drug,” she said. “It was an enemy for me. I thought I was going insane.”

Her boyfriend, who used to inject her, often shot up himself before giving her a fix, she said. Because he was so relaxed, he sometimes missed the vein, and she developed pockets of heroin under her skin. Other times, he was impatient and injected it while it was still hot from the “cooking” preparation process, causing heat rashes on her arms.

She shot heroin six to 10 times a day for two months, paying $360 to $500 daily for the drug, she said. She said she sold her television, her VCR and her microwave.

Sometimes, she went to bars and pretended she was a prostitute, luring men outside, where her boyfriend was waiting to beat them up and rob them of their wallets.

Other times, Sandy said, she’d wait until the bank closed at 5 p.m., then go to the shops with her checkbook to buy televisions and VCRs. At first, she would trade them for drugs. Then, she began selling them for about $120 each to get money to support her habit.

Finally, in late August, a woman at the trailer park where she was selling many of the items called the police, who discovered 200 receipts for televisions and VCRs in the glove compartment of the car Sandy was using, Sandy said.

Her boyfriend, who was with her, was arrested. She wasn’t arrested that day, but she had no money, no way to get drugs. On the verge of getting sick, she called her mother and asked for help.

She has been at Primary Purpose since then. When she finishes a 30-day treatment program, she faces charges for writing bad checks, she said.

During the detoxification process, she said she felt as though there was a metal rod up her spine. She had the jitters and went through hot and cold sweats. She vomited and had hallucinations, sleeping little for 11 days.

“I’m not ever going to ever, ever be that sick again,” the blond woman said. “Heroin is one drug I will never go back to.”

Addicts usually describe the feeling when they first take heroin as better than an orgasm, Detective Combs said.

But the body begins to need and expect heroin. If addicts do not receive their fixes, they start feeling sick, as if they are getting a cold.

They become feverish, nauseated and constipated and often complain that their bones ache, Combs said. The only thing that helps is another fix.

“It reaches a point where you’re not getting high anymore,” said Andy, who tried heroin for the first time at age 14. “You’re just getting well.”

The average heroin user, or junkie, will use four to six milligrams of pure heroin four to six times a day, officials said.

Heroin itself does not destroy the body, but a number of health problems may accompany the injections, Combs said.

Veins start to collapse from repeated injections. Dirty needles may lead to jaundice, hepatitis or AIDS. And most addicts turn away from personal hygiene and nutrition.

“Heroin people are slobs,” said George, 42, a former addict. “The only thing on their mind is where they’re going to get their next fix.”

Primary Purpose, based at 840 W. 5th Street in Oxnard, has almost quadrupled the number of beds in its facility since it started, said Program Administrator E. Micki Feather.

The center can treat 10 people in its three- to five-day detoxification area, at a cost of $216 to $390. The 30-day treatment program costs an average of $1,500 and has room for 38 people. People who want more counseling may go on to live in one of two graduate houses for another three to six months for $400 a month, Feather said.

Steve, 39, a patient at Primary Purpose, said he first took heroin in the Army in 1969. For years after that, he used it occasionally as a party drug, able to use it without feeling too sick even after two or three days of getting high.

But a year ago, his father-in-law died of cancer and Steve discovered 1,500 morphine pills among his effects. Steve said he took as many as eight of the pills a day for six months. When he ran out of pills, he returned to heroin with a vengeance.

Steve, his forearms covered with tattoos, said he would get up half an hour before his wife to prepare his fixes and hide the situation from his wife. He would prepare a couple of syringes of the drug to take to work.

He sold marijuana and gave rides to connections to pay for the habit. He decided to seek help after he realized he was becoming much like his stepfather, also a heroin addict.

“I was in the vicinity of people I really didn’t even like,” he said. “I was just at the end. I didn’t have the strength to play the game anymore.”

Other people have tried to wean themselves from heroin addictions through methadone programs. Although methadone also is an addictive drug, it stays in the body six to nine times longer than heroin, keeping the user functional, said Alfredo Acosta, program manager for the clinic on Saviers Road in Oxnard run by Community Health Project, a nonprofit, private corporation.

The methadone program allows people to detoxify at their own pace, Acosta said.

Once the person is free of opiates, an opiate blocker is used to prevent the junkie from feeling the effects of heroin if he does use it, Acosta said.

The facility is licensed to treat 40 people in a 21-day detoxification program and 140 people on a longer-term methadone maintenance program. A clinic on D Street, which also treats other medical problems, handles 75 addicts, and a facility in Simi Valley handles 50 people, Acosta said.

“Little Oxnard has a high yield of heroin addicts,” Acosta said. “For us to have two clinics less than 10 minutes apart is a significant factor.”

People begin arriving at the clinic at 5:30 a.m., anxious for their turn to approach the nurse behind the counter and drain a plastic cup of fluorescent pink drink. Hurriedly, they pour water from a jug and wash down remnants of the bitter methadone.

Some come for treatment every day. Others are trusted with two- or three-day supplies of the potent drug, which is guarded in the building by an alarm system.

Sharon, 46, of Ojai came one recent Wednesday morning for her dose. Her blue jeans and jean jacket bagging around her bony frame, the woman said she never would have believed she would become a heroin addict.

She said she began using prescription drugs such as Dilaudid and Percodan in 1972 to control pain after breaking her neck and lower back.

After years of controlling her use of the pain pills, she got hooked on them. Eventually, she said, they were not strong enough and she began taking heroin two years ago.

The mother of three started dealing heroin to supply her habit.

“You lose your friends, your way of life,” she said. “You’re living one way, then all of a sudden, boom.”

Mary, 26, started the methadone maintenance program in December. Two months pregnant, she said she plans to delay the detoxification process until after she has her baby. She has been warned by clinic personnel that the detoxification process could endanger the child.

She said she has undergone the clinic’s shorter, 21-day detoxification process about 10 times since 1985. But it was difficult to remain free of the drug, she said.

She is married now, and said the months on methadone have given her a chance to think through what she wants to do with her life.

“I feel stronger now,” she said.