Emergency Officials Confirm Findings on Rise of Heroin

A new report that says Ventura County has one of the fastest-growing heroin problems in the state was confirmed Thursday by county paramedics, police and emergency-room doctors.

They are seeing more people winding up in county hospitals because of heroin overdoses and other problems related to heroin use. Local drug programs have geared up counseling sessions for users, and law enforcement agencies are again beefing up enforcement.

“We’ve seen an increase in use and sales, and in fact we’ve made a few undercover buys,” said Capt. Dennis Carpenter, who heads the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department’s narcotics unit. “We’re going to target those people dealing heroin, but eight out of 10 of our operations are focused on methamphetamine, which by far still remains the drug of choice in the county.”

Although heroin’s popularity dipped slightly in the 1980s, heroin use in California surged to record levels during this decade.

From 1986 to 1995, the number of heroin patients admitted each year to hospitals in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties went from 430 to 548--marking one of the fastest growth rates in the state, according to the report to be released today by the Irvine-based Public Statistics Institute. The private institute performs contract research on health issues, primarily for health-care organizations.

The report shows that the typical user in the two counties is a white male in his late 30s. The racial and age breakdown showed that Latinos make up the second-largest group of users, followed by African Americans and then Asians.

Even though admissions per 100,000 in the two counties fell below the rate of California as a whole, the increase is still alarming for local officials.

County authorities say they have noticed a rise in heroin-related arrests in addition to more emergency-room admissions in recent years.

“Absolutely, we’re seeing more,” said Sgt. Tim Combs of the Oxnard Police Department, where police and paramedics are responding on average to about six overdoses a week.

In Oxnard, long recognized as the hub for heroin activity in the county, the drug never really fell out of fashion, Combs said.

And heroin is cheap. A gram sells for $80 to $100 in Oxnard, Combs said.

The fashionable appeal of “heroin chic” along with an increase in the purity and supply of the drug has helped fuel the problems, he said.

“We see this a lot,” Combs said. “We get a call from a relative or friend and find someone slumped on a couch or in a shower unconscious and barely breathing. An officer has to do CPR, the Fire Department comes, there’s the paramedics. The whole ticket. It costs a lot of taxpayer money.”

And some of those people die.

Last year 28 people died of heroin overdoses, according to statistics from the Ventura County medical examiner.

Hospital officials at Ventura County Medical Center, where many of these patients end up, said they are seeing more heroin users coming into the emergency room. Hospital statistics, however, were not immediately available.

One emergency room counselor said the drug users she sees appear to be getting younger.

“I couldn’t tell you how many, but we are definitely seeing more ODs, abscesses, infections,” she said. “Especially within the last year.”

Most of the heroin found in Ventura County is black tar heroin smuggled in from Mexico, officials said.

The drug is never 100% pure, often being “cut” with substances such as baking soda and sugar dozens of times before it is sold on the street. But the heroin sold today is twice as strong as that sold a decade ago, officials said.

“I think in the 1970s you were talking about 5% purity, and now it’s up around 10% to 12%,” said Bob Holland, a county drug and alcohol program counselor.

“I don’t deal directly with hospital admissions, but I read police reports and I’m seeing more and more overdoses in there,” Holland said.

Although heroin is reemerging as a drug of choice, he said, the most alarming increase is in methamphetamine use.

A narcotic that is three times stronger than morphine, heroin slows down bodily functions.

“We’ve had patients with fewer than four heartbeats a minute who are blue in the face from not breathing,” said Robert Higham, a paramedic supervisor for Gold Coast ambulance service in Oxnard.

“In the last couple of months we seem to have really had a lot,” Higham said. “And it seems like the stuff is purer, stronger, because it takes a lot longer to wake them up.”

And users have other problems. They continue to share needles despite the risks of contracting HIV or hepatitis, health workers said.

When users miss a vein, an abscess can develop in the fatty tissue, resulting in infections, which have been so bad in some users that they have had to have arms or legs amputated, officials said.

* DRUG ABUSE

Southern California has most rapid rise in state. A3

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Hospitalized Heroin Users

The following breaks down by ethnicity the heroin users admitted to hospitals in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. The rates are the number admitted per 100,000 people.

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Whites Latinos African Americans Year % Rate % Rate % Rate % Rate 1995 68.3 52.9 27.4 44.9 2.2 46.3 0.6 4.9 1994 60.1 33.9 37.2 45.8 1.3 19.3 0.5 3.3 1993 64.2 32.8 30.7 35.2 3.1 43.1 2.0 11.9 1992 64.9 25.9 32.3 29.8 1.8 19.3 0.7 3.5 1991 56.4 17.9 38.6 29.3 2.3 20.3 2.7 10.8 1990 65.3 20.8 30.1 23.9 2.3 20.7 1.8 7.5 1989 67.2 26.9 27.0 27.8 2.6 29.6 2.9 15.2 1988 66.6 29.9 31.8 37.8 1.6 21.8 0.0 0.0 1987 69.7 21.9 29.3 25.1 1.0 9.0 0.0 0.0 1986 70.5 46.3 24.4 45.2 3.0 59.8 0.5 4.2

Year Rate Number 1995 48.5 548 1994 35.7 398 1993 32.6 358 1992 25.8 279 1991 20.7 220 1990 21.0 219 1989 26.7 274 1988 30.2 302 1987 21.3 208 1986 45.0 430

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* Total number of admissions may include a small percentage of cases that are missing race / ethnicity data.

Source: Public Statistics Institute