SPARTA – Of all the frightening numbers used to describe the heroin trade, zero may be the scariest.
The number of heroin users seeking treatment increased sharply over the last decade in Sussex County, where police regularly scooped up drug dealers over that time.
Yet federal investigators with the Drug Enforcement Administration report a troubling trend: Heroin is only getting cheaper.
Flooding an area with cheap, highly pure, highly addictive heroin can undermine efforts of policing, prevention and treatment by reducing barriers to the drug.
Depending who the customer is, what they’re looking for, or what they’re willing to offer in exchange for the drug, dealers can offer heroin for little or no overhead cost. That’s right – $0.
“There are people who are able to get it fronted to them, which means they’re given it on credit or they put together the capital, and they go and they buy bricks,” said Tom Reed, head of the county’s drug task force.
As the number of active users and budding addicts grows, local residents in the county as well as transplanted drug dealers from larger cities try to take advantage of outside markets.
The market extends from source points in New York City, Newark, Patterson and East Orange to exurbs in Passaic and Sussex County, N.J.; Pike County, Pa. and Orange County, N.Y.
“You can double your money that way, even better. If you’re buying buy bricks you may get down to as little as $6 (a bag), and you can sell a bag for as much as $20 here in Sussex County,” Reed said. “Typically now it’s down to $10 to $15, because there is just such incredible supply.
From zero to OD
Ben, an anonymous recovering addict, said he often had bags of heroin given to him for going through the trouble of transporting the drug from city to suburbs.
But he also described a surprising cultural trend among addicts who view overdoses, not as threats, but as signs of high-quality drugs.
During the height of his addiction, Ben overdosed twice on heroin supplied by the same dealer, he said.
“I was in a restroom, and I did a two-bag shot and, I remember doing it and getting way too high way too fast and then waking up in the hospital,” he said. “The second time, I was driving in a car with a girl. She was talking and I wasn’t responding. She said later I was gray in the face. Not even blue. So I hadn’t been breathing for a while. I woke up in the ambulance and tried to leave.”
He said the overdoses were a sign his dealer’s supply was highly concentrated with heroin, rather than being loaded down with cutting agent used to stretch the drug.
“Whoever decided to cut the heroin did an amazing job and gave me really good heroin,” he said. “It is sick to say that, but as soon as someone overdoses on a bag, everyone rushes to get that… In the media, it might be seen as something that’s killing somebody, but really it’s because of the purity. The purity is just too high or the cut wasn’t mixed thoroughly.”
Ben said that profits drive the dealer to increase the purity of the bags, and the dealer doesn’t stand to gain if his clientele dies as a result.
“These people are business people. They want to make money. They don’t want to hurt you,” Ben said. “So they’re going to do their best to give you the best product they can at the best price. They want you to come back. They want your friends to come.”
But, of the friends Ben had while he is using, many are no longer alive. Those losses have helped motivate him into treatment, he said.
“Everyone that was around us, that we knew, is no longer alive. They were in the same situation we were. They just died, and we didn’t.” He said. “You always think that you can handle it. You think it’s something they did wrong.”
Removing heroin’s opportunity
Therapists, police and others familiar with the problem in Sussex point to a state of denial by many unwilling to admit that both drugs and addiction are major problems in the county.
“If anybody thinks, ‘I don’t have that problem in my town,’ they’re mistaken,” Reed said. “Until it’s your kid, there’s not a big lobby for dead bodies. You know? I’m sorry I’m a dead overdose guy. There’s not a lobby for him. No one really cares, except in families.”
Continuing the status quo will not close down the heroin trade in the tri-state area, said Carolyn Spencer, a licensed clinical social worker who practices in Butler N.J. and teaches psychology at Orange County Community College. She has been counseling teen drug users since 2003.
Spencer said that the rates at which police make arrests and addicts make recoveries is far too slow to surpass the heroin trade’s rapid cultivation of new users, she said.
“We should invest our time and our money in getting them early, not when they’re bored and already addicted,” Spencer said.
Advanced heroin addiction comes after earlier experimentation with drugs, usually between 12 and 14, she said.
"Research tells us that adolescents with substance use disorders are more likely to have a psychiatric disorder, including depression, anxiety or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder," said Dr. Debra Koss, a child and adolescent psychiatristists practicing in Sparta. "For these teens with co-existing substance use and mental illness, both disorders need to be addressed in order to help the adolescent reach recovery. Environmental factors, such as early exposure to adult drug use can also play a part.
“What can these kids do to be a part of a community where they don’t have to turn to drugs in order to numb out, because they are bored out of their minds?” Spencer said.
Although she commends drug courts for compelling more addicts to seek treatment, Spencer criticized the county for offering little for its youth, who later disappoint by turning to drugs.
“Sussex County is all land. There is nothing there. Anywhere you go there are very few places for teenagers. If anything they’re a nuisance. No loitering. No solicitation. This is how they treat teens. So what do they do? They go into the woods and they use.”
It is children with an identifiable sense of self worth, something defensible, who tend to avoid the drug altogether, she said.
“Nobody took the time to watch them and say, ‘What are you doing? Why are you bored? Come here.’ Nobody does that. Then they want to fix it at the end by creating drug programs,” Spencer said.
“Ridiculous,” she said.