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Drug is infiltrating all walks of Seattle life
Thursday, April 13, 2000
By VANESSA HO
It has killed students, mortgage brokers, roofers, runaways. Cooks, clerks, carpenters. Taxi drivers, postal carriers -- even a once-proud policeman.
It took the life of a young art student on his graduation day and that of a lifelong felon on his first day of freedom.
They die in lonely, humbling ways: face down in a park; slumped in a filthy alley; supine in a swank hotel; naked on a toilet in Renton.
For years, heroin silently destroyed urban down-and-outers and alternative hipsters. But the drug's popularity is spreading to the mainstream from Everett to Maple Valley, and its toll bruises all parts of society.
Reflecting a national trend, heroin deaths in King County nearly tripled in the '90s, to a record 144 in 1998. Another 113 addicts died in 1999, and if the present trend continues, 108 more will fatally overdose by year's end.
Hospitals are seeing record numbers of heroin patients. Heroin prosecutions are at an all-time high. Drug treatment centers now brim with addicts desperate to quit.
And in Seattle, one block from popular Pike Place Market hums another vibrant shopping center: "The Blade," one of the largest open-air heroin markets in the city.
Until last year, the work of local officials did little to stem the public health crisis. By the time it was deemed an "epidemic" -- affecting an estimated 10,000 people in King County -- the wait for public methadone treatment had stretched to up to eight months.
But this year, relief may be in sight. King County plans to expand its clinics dispensing methadone, a synthetic opiate that satisfies the need for heroin. Harborview Medical Center has started a new methadone program. And a recent international conference in Seattle unveiled novel ideas on preventing overdoses -- from CPR classes for addicts to "safe injection rooms" supervised by nurses.
In the meantime, heroin's casualties continue to fill up courts and morgues.
"We've seen old, young, African American, Hispanic, white, Asian -- every color of the rainbow," said Seattle Fire paramedic Teresa Thomas of her many overdose runs. "We've seen 15-year-old kids and 65-year-old men. It knows no economic bound."
The top health official in Seattle and King County says the closeted nature of heroin makes it difficult to stir public concern.
"Because most people think they don't know -- or couldn't possibly know -- anyone who could be hooked on heroin, we have a collective denial," said Dr. Alonzo Plough, director of Public Health-Seattle & King County.
"But it may be one of the bright people on your staff, the parents of your child's best friend. It could be a relative or a teacher. Drug addicts do not stand out in society. That is, until it is too late."
Records from the King County Medical Examiner's Office obtained by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer show that heroin overdose victims in the past two years cross all socioeconomic boundaries: from homeless men and women to blue-collar workers and academics.
Experts attribute the rise in heroin use to several factors: The drug has become cheaper, purer and easier to get. The growing popularity of snorting and smoking heroin, rather than shooting it, has lured younger users. And the economy is strong, so there's more money to spend on getting high.
-- Sgt. Roger Thompson, King County Sheriff's Office
Most burglaries, robberies, car prowls and mail thefts are committed for drug money, police and prosecutors say.
Nearly one out of every six men booked into the King County Jail tests positive for heroin. And that's only for those agreeing to a urinalysis.
"When your mail gets stolen, your house is burglarized, your car gets ripped off -- it's the dopers. If you went out and there were no more drugs, I guarantee you, your crime rate would drop," said Roger Thompson, a narcotics and vice sergeant in the King County Sheriff's Office.
Just ask Greg Robinson. A former $500-a-day heroin addict, Robinson did more than four years in prison after a botched bank heist in Oregon.
His rap sheet includes four thefts, two assaults and two weapon offenses -- mostly done for drug money. At the bank, he had been so desperate for money that he shot a gun three times in the air, startling an elderly customer into coughing out his dentures. He felt badly about frightening the man and blamed heroin.
"It dehumanizes you. If you're dope-sick, you take unnecessary chances. You need your fix, and you need it 10 minutes ago. It's when your gorilla says, 'I want to be fed. NOW.' "
Homeless and quilted with faded tattoos, Robinson was 44 when he got on methadone last year after a drug bust sent him through King County Drug Court. Elated, he predicted his friends would die unless they, too, got help.
"I abused drugs from the word go. If two aspirins got rid of a headache, I would take six," Robinson said. "I don't miss that at all. I don't want to give every single penny to the dope man."
He had been a regular at The Blade, a seedy, bustling heroin hangout at Second and Pike. Flanked by cheap teriyaki, porn and pawn shops, The Blade is where many hard-core addicts plan hustles, score dope and exchange needles -- under the shadow of the Pike Place tourist mecca.
In a nearby nondescript storefront, Public Health workers exchange clean needles for dirty ones by the thousands. The steady stream of users includes a young woman with a baby, a man with lesions on his face, a middle-aged woman pulling a needle from a nice leather purse and a senior citizen shaking 15 needles from a crumpled brown sack.
"You watch them gradually decline physically, emotionally and spiritually," health worker Jill Baxter said.
Since 1989, the number of needles exchanged countywide soared from 38,000 to 1.8 million. The number of sites also grew, from one to seven.
Today, addicts can pick up bleach (to disinfect needles), tourniquets and cookers used to melt heroin. They can also learn safer techniques in shooting up and get tested for HIV and hepatitis C, which infects the vast majority of heroin users.
"Nobody sits down and says, I'm going to make a career of being a junkie," health worker Robert Clewis said. "The way we look at addiction needs to be revisited."
"You holding?"
"You looking?"
The sticky substance produced in the remote hills of western Mexico sells for $50 to $100 a gram here, but most users buy a $20 single dose wrapped in plastic, called a "matchhead," which it resembles.
Police Sgt. Doug Vandergiessen, who heads the West Precinct's street-level drug unit, says the downtown heroin trade operates 24 hours a day, sometimes blatantly.
"You can buy dope at Second and Pike at virtually every hour of the day," he said. "It is amazing to see when the dealer shows up. It's like the Pied Piper. Sometimes, it's just like selling a cup of coffee at Starbucks."
Long before addicts end up in the morgue, they usually make several pit stops at Harborview, where one of the most common visits is for treatment of pus-filled abscesses caused by needle use.
Every day, about 20 people need help for large, infected sores on their arms, legs, buttocks and breasts. Another five to 10 people a day are in the emergency room sleeping off overdoses. Ten years ago, the hospital had maybe one heroin overdose a month.
A daily witness to the drug's toll, Dr. Michael Copass, Harborview's emergency services director, asks why the city hasn't done more to fight the epidemic, especially downtown.
"How come it is we still have this problem? It isn't just a public health issue. I think we need some kind of program that says it's not OK to shoot heroin in the downtown area," Copass said.
The West Precinct makes eight to 12 street busts a month and does everything possible to fight heroin trafficking, Capt. Jim Pugel said.
Despite that, Pugel says he's in a tough spot. He knows tourists have to walk through the heroin market. And although violence isn't a problem, litter, drinking and public urination are. And he's familiar with the constant worries about Seattle's "image."
But Pugel also recognizes the value of the needle exchange and other social services at the same corner. He said he has stepped up patrols and has helped remove pay phones used by dealers. But he will not target addicts while they're frequenting the exchange.
"It's sensitive," Pugel said. "We're not going to ignore issues happening in front of us or have a tolerance for drug use. But we're not going to stick four undercover police officers at the (needle exchange) front door."
Every year, Mexican farmers working for sophisticated drug cartels cultivate enough opium to produce about 6 metric tons of heroin -- enough to keep millions of American addicts high.
The illicit crop is grown mostly in the hills of Michoacan, Durango and Sinaloa states. Strapped to engines, floorboards, or fake door nooks, federal agents say the drug travels Interstate 5 to Washington's two main heroin dropoff points: Seattle and Yakima.
No one knows how much heroin makes it to the streets, but law enforcement agencies in the Puget Sound area reported seizing 24 kilograms of heroin last year.
Today's resurgence is only the latest chapter in the drug's colorful but tragic history. Made from the milk of the opium poppy Papaver somniferum, heroin was first synthesized in 1895 by the Bayer Company.
It was marketed as a cure for morphine addicts but created an addiction wave of its own, prompting the United States to outlaw it in the 1920s. Its use swelled among youths and Vietnam War vets in the '60s and '70s and gave way to cocaine in the '80s.
In Portland's Multnomah County, heroin deaths have more than tripled since 1989. In Philadelphia, police make thousands of heroin arrests each year. And in Orlando, Fla., crowds patronize both Disney World and the city's blossoming heroin trade.
Addicts also are getting younger. According to the national survey, almost 90 percent of new heroin users were younger than 26. The average age of someone trying heroin for the first time was 18. Ten years ago, it was 27.
Another chilling trend: A decade ago, heroin sold for about $200 a gram on the street and was about 7 percent pure, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Now it sells for less than half that much and is 40 to 60 percent pure, the agency reports.
"Heroin chic" -- images of pale, skinny, trashy-looking models and musicians -- glamorized the drug, especially among white youths. And more people are smoking heroin, believing the myth that you can't get addicted that way.
"In the past, you injected heroin, and a lot of people shied away from that. Now you can smoke it. Coupled with a reaction to 'heroin chic,' heroin does not carry the kind of deterrent value it once had," said Dr. H. Westley Clark, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment in Rockville, Md.
On Capitol Hill, young heroin addicts often flock to Stonewall Recovery Services, an outpatient treatment center that helps run a needle exchange.
Executive Director Kim Murrillo said she has seen clients, many of whom are homeless, become younger through the years and now has a few who are 12 and 13 years old.
"My theory is that the kids aren't getting their needs met," she said. "There's a reason why they're running away. It's real easy to survive when you're on heroin -- you're not worried about being scared or hungry."
When Kurt Cobain, leader of the band Nivana, killed himself in 1994, his struggle with heroin put a spotlight on the city's problem.
But six years later, grunge is passe and heroin still grips Seattle. Few people can explain why.
Norma Jaeger, King County's chief of drug treatment and rehabilitation services, hazarded a guess: Puget Sound's booming economy. "There's more money, and more to spend."
In recent years, methadone providers have watched clients not only get younger but also wealthier and more educated. They now see more clients in business suits and fancy cars.
Because of heroin's intensely addictive nature, detox and treatment centers that work for other drug abusers do not work for many heroin users.
Most health experts laud methadone. But it remains controversial and inaccessible to most addicts; few counties in Washington allow methadone, and one national study says more than 75 percent of addicts can't get treatment.
In King County, less than one in five addicts can be on methadone at one time. Up to 600 people are often on the waiting list. The county plans to expand the number of treatment slots to 3,150, but a lack of increased funds may jeopardize the effect.
The increase also comes five years after the heroin death toll soared in the mid-1990s. What took so long?
"It was a matter of education on what methadone treatment is, why we need the additional slots," said Greg Nickels, chairman of the county Board of Health.
"This is really a full-blown, real-world crisis, and it merits an emergency response," health director Plough said. "Addiction is a chronic illness just like diabetes. It's no more rational not to have access to methadone as it is to limit the supply of insulin to people with diabetes.
"People should not have to die of substance abuse problems that are treatable."
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER 
Even if you don't know any addicts, heroin has likely affected your tax dollars, safety and quality of life.
"When your mail gets stolen, your house is burglarized, your car gets ripped off -- it's the dopers. If you went out and there were no more drugs, I guarantee you, your crime rate would drop."
He no longer has to. Last month, friends say his old habit reeled him back, and Robinson died at a cheap downtown hotel with a needle by his thigh.
Police in tough spot
When it comes to peddling black tar heroin on the streets of Seattle, two words say it all:Morphine's addictive cure
Before hitting a vein, Seattle's heroin has traveled thousands of miles from Mexico, eluded border agents and shrunk from kilo-sized bricks to single-serving crumbs.
In the '90s, heroin use soared again. In 1998, 2.4 million people said they had tried it, an increase of 40 percent in six years, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. An estimated 800,000 people nationwide are chronic heroin users, the survey found.
Greg Robinson keeps a balloon of black tar heroin in his mouth for a friend. Robinson died in a downtown hotel in March. Dan DeLong / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Why in Seattle?
Heroin often follows artistic circles, like Seattle's grunge music scene in the early '90s, when several prominent musicians died of overdoses.
P-I reporter Vanessa Ho can be reached at 206-448-8003 or vanessaho@seattle-pi.com
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