Fort Myers Police Department

Heroin is a highly addictive drug and the most rapidly

acting of the opiates.

What is its origin?
Heroin is processed from morphine, a naturally occurring
substance extracted from the seed pod of certain varieties
of poppy plants grown in:
Southeast Asia (Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar (Burma),
Southwest Asia (Afghanistan and Pakistan), Mexico, and
Colombia

It comes in several forms, the main one being black tar from
Mexico (found primarily in the western United States) and
white heroin from Colombia (primarily sold on the East Coast).

What are common street names?

Big H, Black Tar, Chiva, Hell Dust, Horse,
Negra, Smack, Boy, H, and Thunder

What does it look like?
Heroin is typically sold as a white or brownish
powder, or as the black sticky substance
known on the streets as black tar heroin.
Although purer heroin is becoming more
common most street heroin is cut with
other drugs or with substances such as sugar,
starch, powdered milk, or quinine.
How is it abused?
Heroin can be injected, smoked, or
sniffed/snorted.
High purity heroin is usually snorted or
smoked.

What is its effect on the mind?
Because it enters the brain so rapidly, heroin
is particularly addictive, both psychologically
and physically. Heroin abusers report feeling
a surge of euphoria or rush, followed by a
twilight state of sleep and wakefulness.

What is its effect on the body?

One of the most significant effects of heroin use is addiction.

With regular heroin use, tolerance to the drug develops.

Once this happens, the abuser must use more heroin to achieve
the same intensity. As higher doses of the drug are used over time,
physical dependence and addiction to the drug develop.

Physical symptoms of heroin use include:

Drowsiness, respiratory depression, constricted pupils,
nausea, a warm flushing of the skin, dry mouth, and heavy
extremities

What are its overdose effects?

Because heroin abusers do not know the actual
strength of the drug or its true contents, they are
at a high risk of overdose
or death.

The effects of a heroin overdose are:

Slow and shallow breathing, blue lips and
fingernails, clammy skin, convulsions, coma, and
possible death.

Which drugs cause similar effects?
Other opioids such as Oxycontin, Vicodin,
codeine, morphine, methadone, and fentanyl
can cause similar effects as heroin.

What is its legal status in the United States?

Heroin is a Schedule I substance under the
Controlled Substances Act meaning that it
has a high potential for abuse, no current
accepted medical use in treatment in the
United States, and a lack of accepted safety
for use under medical supervision.

Heroin use has long been associated with
crime because its importation and
distribution are illegal. Many addicted people
turn to theft and prostitution to obtain
money to buy the drug
In Miami-Dade County, deaths jumped 120
percent, from 15 in 2011 to 33 in 2012.

The crossover from the prescription products to
illicit heroin complicates that and will fuel the
continued epidemic.

Medical experts say that the latest spike in
heroin use and deaths is among young adults,
ages 18 to 29, who are using it in place of
prescription pain pills.

Until recently, Florida was the nation's capital
for the illegal prescription pain medication
trade. The state once had 90 of the top 100
oxycodone-purchasing physicians in the
nation and 53 of the top 100 pharmacies
supplying the pills.

Tougher regulations that went into place in
2012 have made access to legal doctors
more difficult. The Pill Mills have dwindled
and a majority moved out of state.

As a result, users are moving back to heroin
Many of those pills made their way up the
East Coast, sold at high markups in rural
communities stretching from northern
Alabama to western Pennsylvania. Interstate
95 was dubbed Oxy Alley or Oxy Express for
the dealers who regularly drove hundreds of
miles to South Florida to buy cheap pain pills.

Year Total Seized Street Value
Increase Year to
Year
2012 50.2 grams $5,378.00 _____
2013 152.4 grams $16,328.00 203%
2014 (1
st
Quarter only) 402.2 grams $43,092.00 164%
The Special Investigations Group continues to
make undercover drug purchases.

The results of these purchases is drug dealers
arrested as well as search warrants for residence
being used for distribution locations( in fact, in the first
quarter of 2014 of the 402 grams seized, 175.6 grams came from residences
during search warrants)

Detectives have seen an increase over the last
two years of the amount of heroin purchased on
the streets

It still does not rise to the level of cocaine
seen and purchased

The sharp increase is in correlation with the
drop off of prescription pills being sold on the
street. The majority of the prescription drugs
were opiate based, Oxycontin for example.


When stricter measures were placed on the
pain clinics, the street user had more
difficulty getting drugs from a licensed
doctor.

The result was falling back to heroin
Because of the increase in heroin use, The Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Department of
Justice have started an initiative to combat the escalating
heroin use. Additional funding has become available to
assist with the enforcement and investigation into the
importation, distribution and sale of this dangerous drug.

The local office of DEA is participating in this initiative and
will be working with local agencies to confront this
dangerous issue.

This is a nationwide issue and not solely a Southwest
Florida problem.