Mexican heroin is killing more Americans
Several addicts visit NY-Vocal every day, an organization that seeks to reduce the damages caused by heroin use. (Photo: LUIS CORTÉS / EL UNIVERSAL )
Acxel Barboza, New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, spent much of his
life buying white envelopes in Harlem, north of Manhattan, for
10 dollars at one of the corners controlled by gangs like The Latin Kings or
The Bloods, that operate throughout the United States. The envelopes contained
a dose of heroin with a 60% purity.
Five years later, Barboza is still in the corners of Harlem, but instead
of buying heroin he distributes pamphlets, syringes, methadone and condoms to
help addicts have a "responsible consumption".
Since Barboza stopped using heroin he joined the New York Harm Reduction
Educators, a non-profit organization devoted to promoting the health, safety
and well-being of marginalized, low-income persons who use drugs. The logic of
such groups is that drug use is a public health issue, so their mission is
preventing drug users from dying from an overdose or diseases such as HIV and
hepatitis C.
"Sometimes they take us for drug traffickers. They see us in the
corners with syringes and they believe that we sell heroin, but we are just the
opposite," says the man in his 30s.
The worst epidemic
New York is experiencing its worst heroin use
epidemic since the 70's. Around 420 people died last year from an overdose
and consumption grew 84% between 2010 and 2012. According to a study by the
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 6.2 people per 100,000
inhabitants died from an overdose in New York City last year, the highest rate
in the last decade.
The number of deaths is also high throughout the United States, where
Mexican cartels have increased the supply of heroin, especially the Sinaloa
cartel. In 2013, 3,665 people died from heroin use, compared to 1,799 in 2012.
Allan Clear, executive director of the Harm Reduction Coalition, began
working on the streets of New York in 1990 providing sterile syringes for
addicts.
Like many other New Yorkers, Clear knew several addicts who had AIDS or
hepatitis C. "There were 200,000 consumers and half of them had HIV. Many
people were dying and something had to change," he recalls.
Consumption was very visible throughout the city back then, especially
in communities like Bronx, Brooklyn or Harlem. You could see people smoking
crack or using heroin and cocaine. Many of those drug users often end up sick,
dead, in prison or secluded in psychiatric institutions. Many were also left
homeless.
Consumption in New York has become invisible compared to those years,
even though it has not diminished. There are two theories to explain the
phenomenon.
One is technology: the increased use of mobile phones made home delivery
possible. Cyrus Vance, District Attorney of New York County, said in April last
year: "Residents of Manhattan today can get nearly everything delivered to
their doorstep - from dinner to dry cleaning and even cocaine."
The prosecutor made this statement after a two-year investigation that
ended with 41 arrests. The detainees, that belonged to three gangs, sold
cocaine at twice the market value in Manhattan. Their customers were students,
housewives or Wall Street bankers. Prosecutors estimate that during the time
that the police kept track of them they sold drugs worth US$1.2 million.
The other theory is known in New York as "broken windows",
which means that drug use is tolerated under two conditions: that there is no
strife or violence and that it is not public in the tourist areas of New York.
"If you ask me: what is the community where most drugs are consumed
I would say Wall Street," says Matt Curtis, Policy Director at NY-Vocal,
another organization dedicated to harm reduction among drug users.
Heroin user profile
According to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the profile of
heroin users has changed in the last decade. Now they are younger and belong to
the middle and upper classes compared to the previous stereotype of heroin
users: poor, black and homeless. Consumption has increased among people aged 15
to 34, although most deaths are between 35 and 54.
The epidemic has reached suburbs like Staten Island, one of the most
affected parts of the city, where 36 people died from heroin use in 2012 and 37
more for abusing prescription pills like oxycodone. Experts say that consumption
has changed in this area. Many young people addicted to opioids began using
heroin because it is cheaper and more powerful.
When authorities closed clandestine clinics where these pills were
prescribed, local traffickers started selling heroin for up to five dollars.
Other affected groups are Hispanics in the Bronx, mainly men between 40 and 50
years. Last year 146 died from overdoses, compared to 64 in 2010.
"Until young whites began to die in Staten Island nobody realized
that we faced a serious heroin epidemic," says Mike Selick, from New York
Harm Reduction Educators.
* The authors won the 2013
National Journalism Award and the 2014 Ortega y Gasset Journalism Award for a
series entitled "Narcotics in America", published by EL UNIVERSAL.