HEROIN AND OTHER OPIATES USE RISING IN COLORADO, FIGURES SHOW
Federal and local data suggest an uptick in heroin use in Colorado, a troubling development for local drug enforcement agencies and treatment programs.
One new federal drug use survey, the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Annual Report, shows that street use of opiate drugs, including heroin and opiate-based prescription medicines such as oxycodone, has doubled between 2000 and 2011.
The report, released May 17 by the National Office of Drug Control Policy, tracks the blood test results of adult male arrestees in Denver and nine other U.S. cities. In Denver; Indianapolis; Sacramento, Calif.; and Minneapolis, the number of adult male arrestees testing positive for opiates, including heroin and prescription painkillers, rose from 3 percent to 4 percent in 2000 to 8 percent to 10 percent in 2011.
Most of the heroin in Denver comes from Mexican drug cartels selling black and brown heroin, said Tom Gorman, director of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program.
Heroin use still lags behind methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana, accounting for 3 percent of drug arrests in Colorado.
"It's out there," Gorman said. "It is increasing in our area. Heroin hasn't reached the level of other drugs yet, but pharmaceutical opiate abuse is skyrocketing. Those drugs are more expensive than heroin, and that moves people to go from opiates to heroin. It's the same kind of high, but cheaper."
New heroin users increasingly are under age 35, white non-Hispanics, and more likely to smoke heroin than inject it, said Bruce Mendelson, senior data consultant at the Denver Office of Drug Strategy.
Alcohol and marijuana still lead the list of the most-abused drugs in Denver, Mendelson said, followed by heroin. In 2010, heroin overdoses ranked third (behind marijuana and cocaine) in Denver metro emergency department visits related to illicit drug abuse.
During the first half of 2011, of Denver residents admitted for addiction treatment, nearly 18 percent were admitted for heroin and prescription opiate addiction treatment, surpassing methamphetamines, according to statistics from the Colorado Health Foundation and Denver Office of Drug Strategy. Heroin and opiate drugs have become the third-leading cause of deaths that are alcohol- or drug-related.
Data from drug-abuse-treatment programs also show an uptick in heroin use and a sharp rise in opiate pharmaceuticals, said Marc Condojani, associate director of community intervention programs at the state division of behavioral health.
"We had 1,676 heroin admissions in 2003, and then the numbers dipped for a few years, but then they went up again," Condojani said.
"In 2010, we had 1,755 treatment admissions for heroin. In the other-opiates category, we had 541 people admitted for treatment in 2003, and in 2010, there were 1,715. That's over a threefold increase. The alarming part, to me, is that people who are dependent on those prescription medications eventually look for alternatives. And that's usually heroin."
Claire Martin: 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com
Read more: Heroin and other opiate use rising in Colorado, figures show - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20823072/heroin-and-other-opiate-use-rising-colorado-figures#ixzz1xPQlY2b9
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Federal and local data suggest an uptick in heroin use in Colorado, a troubling development for local drug enforcement agencies and treatment programs.
One new federal drug use survey, the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Annual Report, shows that street use of opiate drugs, including heroin and opiate-based prescription medicines such as oxycodone, has doubled between 2000 and 2011.
The report, released May 17 by the National Office of Drug Control Policy, tracks the blood test results of adult male arrestees in Denver and nine other U.S. cities. In Denver; Indianapolis; Sacramento, Calif.; and Minneapolis, the number of adult male arrestees testing positive for opiates, including heroin and prescription painkillers, rose from 3 percent to 4 percent in 2000 to 8 percent to 10 percent in 2011.
Most of the heroin in Denver comes from Mexican drug cartels selling black and brown heroin, said Tom Gorman, director of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program.
Heroin use still lags behind methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana, accounting for 3 percent of drug arrests in Colorado.
"It's out there," Gorman said. "It is increasing in our area. Heroin hasn't reached the level of other drugs yet, but pharmaceutical opiate abuse is skyrocketing. Those drugs are more expensive than heroin, and that moves people to go from opiates to heroin. It's the same kind of high, but cheaper."
New heroin users increasingly are under age 35, white non-Hispanics, and more likely to smoke heroin than inject it, said Bruce Mendelson, senior data consultant at the Denver Office of Drug Strategy.
Alcohol and marijuana still lead the list of the most-abused drugs in Denver, Mendelson said, followed by heroin. In 2010, heroin overdoses ranked third (behind marijuana and cocaine) in Denver metro emergency department visits related to illicit drug abuse.
During the first half of 2011, of Denver residents admitted for addiction treatment, nearly 18 percent were admitted for heroin and prescription opiate addiction treatment, surpassing methamphetamines, according to statistics from the Colorado Health Foundation and Denver Office of Drug Strategy. Heroin and opiate drugs have become the third-leading cause of deaths that are alcohol- or drug-related.
Data from drug-abuse-treatment programs also show an uptick in heroin use and a sharp rise in opiate pharmaceuticals, said Marc Condojani, associate director of community intervention programs at the state division of behavioral health.
"We had 1,676 heroin admissions in 2003, and then the numbers dipped for a few years, but then they went up again," Condojani said.
"In 2010, we had 1,755 treatment admissions for heroin. In the other-opiates category, we had 541 people admitted for treatment in 2003, and in 2010, there were 1,715. That's over a threefold increase. The alarming part, to me, is that people who are dependent on those prescription medications eventually look for alternatives. And that's usually heroin."
Claire Martin: 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com
Read more: Heroin and other opiate use rising in Colorado, figures show - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20823072/heroin-and-other-opiate-use-rising-colorado-figures#ixzz1xPQlY2b9
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse
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