Heroin is Back
In spite of U. S. law enforcement’s fifty-year-old drug war, illegal drugs are still widely available. Makers, distributors, and dealers of illegal drugs continue to sell these drugs to addicts and users and seek to ensnare new customers. Regardless of stiff criminal penalties and long prison sentences, a black market for illegal drugs flourishes. Certain illegal drugs have remained popular; others gain, lose, or regain their popularity over time. Though heroin did not vanish from the black market, it has regained popularity among users and addicts.
Heroin, also called “smack,” produces immediate effects on the user: a flood of pleasurable sensations followed by warm skin flushing, dry mouth, lightheadedness, nausea, vomiting, itching, drowsiness, mental impairment, slowed heartrate, and slowed breathing. This slowed breathing may imperil the user’s life, lead to a coma, permanently cause brain injury, or lead to death. Since users may use or share needles to get a “fix,” they run additional risks of serious infections. Despite this reality, heroin’s popularity today has moved past street addicts and is affecting middle and upper class people.
The number of American heroin users has almost doubled in the last decade. Anecdotal reports of heroin sales and deaths are alarming; it is readily available and sometimes sold at unlikely locations. For instance, a Pittsburg, Pennsylvania McDonald’s employee sold heroin at the drive-through window as a Happy Meal container with heroin inside. Users and addicts uttered so-called “code” words and phrases such as “order a toy” to complete the transaction or make the buy. In the last six years, twenty high schoolers in a Chicago suburb reportedly died from heroin overdoses; nearly fifty people in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Maryland reportedly died due to heroin. These reported numbers may be low.
Today, heroin is often processed in Mexico. After U.S. drug enforcement agencies implemented tougher policies to prevent abuse of prescription drugs, including painkillers, the price to buy those drugs soared. As a result, some addicts turned to heroin to save money while satisfying their cravings.
At the same time, the supply for heroin has risen; producers are growing more plants from which heroin is derived and then smuggling the finished product to the U.S. Thus, the producers and processors of heroin are responding to this black market; they have increased supply, kept prices low, and succeeded in switching many addicts’ drug of choice to heroin.
Furthermore, the increase in Mexico’s heroin supply is the smugglers’ response to American customers’ (users and addicts) overall preferences. Americans are using less cocaine than previously and are purchasing more American-grown marijuana, which some states have decriminalized. Mexican drug sellers reacted to this black market reality and in part switched their resources from making cocaine and marijuana to heroin.
Manufacturing, selling, using, or possessing heroin and other illegal drugs is a serious criminal offense. If you are charged with a drug crime, whether involving heroin or other illegal drugs, you have rights. For more information, contact Attorney Perry A. Craft.
Perry A. Craft has dedicated his life to helping people in need. He has tried, settled, or resolved numerous civil and criminal cases in State and Federal courts, and has represented teachers and administrators before school boards, administrative judges, and the state Board of Education. Learn more about Attorney Craft.