Heroin Abuse on the Rise in Northwest

Heroin use has risen dramatically in the Pacific Northwest, with overdoses in the Portland, Ore., area accounting for nearly as many deaths among young and middle-age men as cancer or heart disease, the government said Thursday.

The drug, at about $20 a dose, is cheap on the West Coast, and black tar heroin from Mexico or South America is readily available there, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Other studies have indicated that heroin overdoses increased in most U.S. cities in the 1990s, but not as dramatically as in Seattle and Portland.

Officials in Multnomah County, Ore., which includes Portland, analyzed medical examiner reports and found that heroin overdose deaths for men ages 25 to 54 climbed steadily from 46 in 1993 to 111 in 1999. Eighty-seven percent of the overdoses were among men.

In 1997, 67 men ages 25 to 54 died of heroin overdoses in the county, compared with 88 of cancer, 73 of heart disease and 44 of AIDS.

The CDC said the report probably underestimated heroin overdoses. Many deaths were excluded because they may have been suicides, and 52 were excluded because the victims were not residents of Multnomah County.

The Seattle area saw a similar increase, as the number of heroin overdose deaths climbed from 47 in 1990 to 110 in 1999. More than 84% of the victims were male, and many overdoses were not included in the statistics because they were believed to be suicides or because the victims were not residents.

Injection increases the risk of death because of the rapid rise of opiate levels in the blood, the CDC said. Black tar heroin is usually injected because it is too impure to snort.

In most overdose opiate deaths, alcohol and other drugs were also involved, the CDC reported.

Dr. Gary Oxman, director of the Multnomah County health department, said price, availability and a glamorization of the drug in movies and music have contributed to the rapid growth.

“In today’s economy you can work a minimum-wage job and scrape up enough for housing and food and be a heroin addict. It used to be a lot more expensive,” he said.