Killer Heroin Use Widespread, Will Education Cut Use?

COURT HOUSE – Heroin in Cape May County is killing young adults from “good” families in “nice” neighborhoods. In the last month, the county has experienced nine heroin overdoses with five of them fatal.
One of those fatalities involved a mixture of heroin and Fentanyl, a powerful drug often administered to terminally ill cancer patients. The white powdery drug is on par with homegrown terrorist cells, because it is everywhere, cheap and readily available to anyone with cash. Like terrorists, heroin and those who peddle the poison, care nothing about whom it claims or whose life may be ruined by its use.
Those who use heroin are not those many envisioned as addicts. They are from families rich, middle class and poor, of all races, and they may still be in middle school. They are in danger of dying because of the drug’s purity here. Death can occur on first use of the drug.
The Herald interviewed Cape May County Prosecutor Robert Taylor May 14 about the heroin problem in the county.
“For the past three years, heroin has topped all other drugs seized in Cape May County,” he said. “Many of the addicted persons started out by abusing prescription pain killers like Oxycontin. The rising cost of prescription drugs has caused many users to revert to cheaper, more rapidly available heroin.”
Municipalities with large problems of heroin include Wildwood, Lower and Middle townships. Taylor stressed that he was not singling out those places, but statistics show they have the greatest incidence of drug sales in the county. No town is exempt from drug sales or users, he noted.
Street value of Oxycontin is $1 per milligram, Taylor said. Thus, an illicit 30mg tablet sells for $30 and a 60mg tablet sells for $60. Heroin may be acquired for $20 a bundle or 10 bags for $80, or a “brick” of 50 bags is available for $250 in most places in the county.
“Heroin is highly addictive and readily available and very inexpensive in the county. Many become addicted after one use because of the purity we are seeing in Cape May County,” said Taylor. A pain killer and depressant, heroin is six times stronger than morphine; and synthetic heroin, Fentanyl, has increased in Cape May County and is directly associated with heroin overdose deaths, he added.
The higher potency level of heroin available in the county allows for snorting or smoking rather than using a syringe. That relative ease of use, erasing the “needle phobia,” encourages young people to experiment, Taylor said. As a user continues in using the drug, his or her physical need for it increases. Ultimately, to get the same self-induced high they will revert to a needle to “shoot up” intravenously.
Gangs, which profit from the illicit sale of heroin and other drugs, send runners into Cape May County from places such as Camden, where heroin may sell for as little as $5 a bundle, 75 percent less than the Cape May County price. They enter into the county for simple monetary return. “They come down here where they can make a profit,” Taylor said.
Other cities from which gangs and drug kingpins export heroin are Philadelphia, Newark and Atlantic City, he added.
What is heroin’s impact on crime in Cape May County?
“As addiction increases, so does the amount of criminal activity,” the prosecutor said. “With addiction comes desperation from users. Addicted users commit thefts, burglaries and robberies to obtain money and property to obtain heroin to purchase it,” Taylor added.
Such thefts are no respecter of property, since copper thefts from under houses and even churches, are common crimes among addicts seeking only money for their next fix.
Residential burglaries, shoplifters and home invasions have increased, Taylor said. He noted many of those crimes are committed by addicts to get something to sell to afford a dose of heroin.
Seizures of heroin by police have steadily risen. Taylor cited figures from 2006 when 437 bags of heroin were seized. By the end of 2012, 3,565 bags of heroin were seized by local law enforcement officers.
“Heroin is the top seized narcotic in Cape May County,” said Taylor. It has bumped cocaine as top seller, but Taylor said, “There is a cocaine shortage, and now that drug is more expensive.”
”There is a need for more county detectives to combat heroin,” said Taylor. That need stems from the fact that many municipalities have reduced their budgets by cutting police officers. Fewer officers and detectives means reduced ability to investigate at a time when illegal drug use and sales are increasing.
Again, money becomes a factor in the discussion. Taxpayers want level or reduced taxes. Governments are under a state-mandated 2 percent cap over the previous year’s budget. Since personnel is one of the few areas to cut the budget, retirements often leave unfilled jobs, some in investigative jobs.
“The freeholders have had a hiring freeze for two years. I asked for more detectives. If that is granted, I plan to have two teams in the Narcotics Task Force in order to attack the problem,” Taylor said. “We need more detectives to set up two teams,” he added.
Imagine one team of detectives in the lower part of the county watching drug dealers while similar or larger operations go unwatched in other parts of the county. That is the dilemma Taylor sees.
“I have spoken to Sen. Jeff Van Drew (D-1st) and he is in agreement we need to increase penalties for distribution, not for small amounts of heroin. All that does is put users in jail with no benefit,” Taylor said.
The cost to the county is not only in salaries of detectives, said Taylor. Heroin addiction, as with other types of addiction, places more work on an overburdened social service system and counseling and treatment providers.
“I gave a detailed report to freeholders in March on what is going on in Cape May County in my annual report,” said Taylor. That is something he has done for the past two years.
Data from Cape Counseling Service from 2007-2012, based on those who enter voluntarily for drug treatment or who are ordered by Drug Court, have increased. In 2007, approximately 225 patients were treated. That soared to over 500 in 2012, Taylor said.
According to a state Department of Health and Senior Services report, treatments have increased 154 percent since 2006 in the county, he added.
Taylor said a group of concerned parties, including Cape Assist, county Chiefs of Police Association, county schools superintendent, and the Sea Isle City Board of Education, which advanced funds for the program, are targeting this fall to begin an all-out educational endeavor that will raise students’ awareness and prevention.
“The heroin issue is discussed monthly by the county Chiefs of Police Association,” Taylor said. At the last meeting, all county police chiefs agreed they would discuss the program with their respective boards of education “so they will all get on board for programs in the schools,” the prosecutor said.
Two younger members of the Prosecutor’s Office staff are preparing a video-type presentation that will combine still and video photography to convey the anti-heroin message.
“We have information that drug dealers have even exposed middle school students to heroin, so we are not talking 17 and 18-year-olds. We are talking children 13 years old,” said Taylor.
“The best thing we can do is cut down on the demand by showing how dangerous heroin is, and to never even try it just once,” he added.