A Call to Arms on a Vermont Heroin Epidemic

[steve2470]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/us/a-call-to-arms-on-a-vermont-heroin-epidemic.html

RUTLAND, Vt. — Block by block, this city in central Vermont has been fighting a heroin epidemic so entrenched that it has confounded all efforts to combat it.

On Cottage Street, the foot traffic is heavy in and out of No. 24 ½, a red two-story cottage set back from the street, where visitors stay less than a minute.

“We know what they’re doing in there,” Victoria DeLong, a longtime neighbor, said of the house, which the police say is owned by an absentee landlord and is a haven for drug dealers. “It’s like shopping at the Grand Union,” Ms. DeLong said. “In and out, in and out.”

Long visible at the street level in towns and cities across the country, the extent of the opiate scourge in rural Vermont burst into the national consciousness last month, when Gov. Peter Shumlin devoted his entire State of the State message to what he said was a “full-blown heroin crisis.” Much of New England is now also reporting record overdoses and deaths.

[JaneyVee]

1. I don't know why I'm so skeptical of this story. I feel like it may be being

Blown a bit out of proportion?

[steve2470]

2. maybe our VT DU'ers can aid us ? nt

[dionysus]

3. cali has claimed it's bullshit, maybe she'll show up and comment.

[steve2470]

4. if it's BS, the Governor is overreacting pretty badly nt

[dionysus]

6. i'm not the one to say. i know in my small home town in maine, drug use is up, a few pharmacies

got held up over the last few years, the bank got hit last week, but it's not NY Times, call the Natl Guard bad, but drug traffic is up.

sometimes smaller towns near the thruways in new England are stopovers for drug traffic going north or south from boston, in our case, north.

but when I go home, I don't see junkies passed out on the ground or anything...

[steve2470]

7. yes, I'm eager to hear what VT'ers have to say nt

[dionysus]

8. in a smallish town it'd only take a dealer or two to make the joint look bad...

(depends on the dealer of what, though )

[cali]

16. No, I haven't said that. I said a specific article was bullshit

one that claimed absurdly that Vermont is the heroin capital of the U.S. when that isn't even marginally true. Yes, Vermont has a heroin problem that's almost identical in scale to the problem in many states. Heroin is cheaper than prescription opiates.

Anyway, it's widely known here that Shumlin has had his eye on big money drug grants- and yes, they're needed, and yes he's already gotten a big grant after his speech. Competition for such money is stiff. Shumlin is a real pro at it. That's not a knock.

Anyway, the whole heroic epidemic appears to be largely bullshit- and again, that's not saying it's not a problem. It's just not a problem that's suddenly growing, let alone exploding:


<snip>

Yet as my colleague at Reason, Jacob Sullum, was quick to document, the government statistics that track heroin use show absolutely no increase in regular use of the drug. According to the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (the latest available), 0.1% of Americans ages 12 and older reported using the drug in the past month. That’s exactly the same percentage that used in 2002, and there has been no significant fluctuation in the intervening decade. The Monitoring the Future study, which tracks behavior of eighth-, 10th-, and 12th-graders, shows annual use of heroin declining across the board from a decade ago.

Much of the confusion stems from journalists and their sources using raw numbers without controlling for population growth or mistaking lifetime use for anything approaching a habit. (Both errors are on display in this “Journalist’s Resource” put out by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy.)

Politicians are prey to the same mistakes. Earlier this year, Governor Peter Shumlin of Vermont made news when he devoted his annual state-of-the-state address to what he called “a full-blown heroin crisis.” Shumlin testified that “we had nearly double the number of deaths in Vermont from heroin overdose as the prior year.”

It’s certainly true that there can be regional spikes, even if national usage rates are flat. But according to Vermont’s department of health, in 2012, there were just nine deaths classified as “heroin involved” (a category that doesn’t mean heroin was the sole or even the principal cause of death). Taking the governor at his word, that means there were fewer than 18 deaths last year in Vermont in which heroin was a factor. (2013 data were not available.)

Those deaths are sad, but in a state with 626,000 residents, they should not be driving major decisions about law enforcement, medical resources and health policy. As the Vermont department of health reports, “mortality due to drugs in Vermont has not changed greatly over the past nine years … these data do not suggest that deaths from any one specific type of drug is increasing or decreasing over the span of multiple years.” The 2013 Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey reports that just 2% of high school students say they have ever tried heroin, down from 3% in 2011. If Vermont is at the forefront of a “major comeback of heroin in the U.S.” (as the Los Angeles Times puts it), we all need to take a few deep breaths.

Read more: Philip Seymour Hoffman's Heroin Problem Does Not Constitute a Crisis | TIME.com http://ideas.time.com/2014/02/06/philip-seymour-hoffman-heroin-crisis/#ixzz2ujZvR3KT


http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20140207/NEWS02/302070033/In-fight-against-heroin-Vermont-taps-10M-grant-for-substance-abuse-prevention

[Agschmid]

5. I am a now removed Vermonter...

I went to UVM and during my time there and my time after graduation as a 20 something living in Burlington I know there sure was a lot if opiate abuse. While I do not know of any deaths directly I do know that many of the robberies that happened were related to drug abuse/purchase (see the quick mart on S. Willard, robbed weekly).

So yes it is a problem, and yes it stands out because the population is smaller so you see it more clearly.

Of course this is just IMO I could try to find some more specific data....

[handmade34]

9. I worked on the NSDUH for quite a few years in Vermont...

and I did a study of drug use in the Northeast Kingdom for one of my Sociology classes, talked to a lot of people about their's and other's drug use and where the stuff comes from... not everybody sees the drug problem but it exists... traffic through I-91 and 89 between big cities
The NSDUH is a pretty good study (anonymous self-reporting)


"Vermont has the highest rate of illicit drug use in the country with 15% of people saying they've used within the past month..."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-vermont-has-a-drug-problem-2013-10#ixzz2ugZ3Kq1K

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-vermont-has-a-drug-problem-2013-10


http://www.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2k11State/NSDUHsaeMaps2011.htm
Figure 1a Illicit Drug Use in the Past Month among Persons Aged 12 or Older, by State: Percentages, Annual Averages Based on 2010 and 2011 NSDUHs


https://nsduhweb.rti.org/respweb/homepage.cfm

[steve2470]

10. thanks for the info, Handmade nt

[Marrah_G]

11. Maybe people in more liberal states are more likely to admit it

[Ghost in the Machine]

14. I'm guessing that this statement is based on a "per capita" basis, right?

"Vermont has the highest rate of illicit drug use in the country with 15% of people saying they've used within the past month..."

Considering this criteria:

How Many People Live in Vermont for 2013 and 2014

Total Population 625,741
http://suburbanstats.org/population/how-many-people-live-in-vermont

compared to the 5 Boroughs that make up New York City:

The Five Boroughs of New York City: 1: Manhattan 2: Brooklyn 3: Queens 4: The Bronx 5: Staten Island

New York's five boroughs overview

Jurisdiction Borough County Borough County 1 July 2012 Estimates square miles square km

Manhattan New York 1,619,090 23 59
The Bronx Bronx 1,408,473 42 109
Brooklyn Kings 2,565,635 71 183
Queens Queens 2,272,771 109 283
Staten Island Richmond 470,728 58 151
City of New York 8,336,697 303 786

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City#Boroughs

I say I'm guessing, but I know it's a fact. In 1981, when I lived in the 3rd smallest County Tennessee, we had 4 murders in one year due to a family feud. However, due to our size, we had a higher murder rate, *per capita*, than Metro Dade County (Miami) Florida! If memory serves correctly, Dade County had over 600 murders that year, as it was the beginning of the "Cocaine Cowboy" decade in Miami. I'm originally from Miami and was transplanted to this small town when I was 13, and moved back to Miami within a week of graduating high school on May 24th, 1981. I've been back in this small town, which is now the 4th smallest County, since 2002 and we've had a total of 3 murders since then.

Peace,

Ghost

[Pretzel_Warrior]

12. this needs wide publicity. though some are shamed by it--admitting your state has a problem is

the first step. I am glad the governor of Vermont is tackling this epidemic. Turns out the medicating philosophy of the VA prescribing opioids to soldiers with brain trauma and PTSD is creating a lot of pain pill addicts who often turn into heroin addicts.

[cali]

18. just for you, pretzie. and all states have problems. btw, I think

your little obsession with me is getting the best of you. try not to get so wound up that you end up putting up silly call out ops.

And here:

<snip>

It’s certainly true that there can be regional spikes, even if national usage rates are flat. But according to Vermont’s department of health, in 2012, there were just nine deaths classified as “heroin involved” (a category that doesn’t mean heroin was the sole or even the principal cause of death). Taking the governor at his word, that means there were fewer than 18 deaths last year in Vermont in which heroin was a factor. (2013 data were not available.)


Those deaths are sad, but in a state with 626,000 residents, they should not be driving major decisions about law enforcement, medical resources and health policy. As the Vermont department of health reports, “mortality due to drugs in Vermont has not changed greatly over the past nine years … these data do not suggest that deaths from any one specific type of drug is increasing or decreasing over the span of multiple years.” The 2013 Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey reports that just 2% of high school students say they have ever tried heroin, down from 3% in 2011. If Vermont is at the forefront of a “major comeback of heroin in the U.S.” (as the Los Angeles Times puts it), we all need to take a few deep breaths.

<snip>

http://ideas.time.com/2014/02/06/philip-seymour-hoffman-heroin-crisis/

Also, everyone in the Vermont politics know, is aware of that Shumlin wanted some big money grants to fight drug use. It's a competitive environment. He's already gotten on $10 million grant since his speech.

So yeah, like most states Vermont has a heroin problem- nevermind that the depth of that problem has been pretty much unchanged, both in VT and the US as a whole, over the past 10 years

[JesterCS]

13. Where I live in Ohio

both the neighboring large cities have a huge Heroin epidemic. Every day on the Police Blotter is at least a couple Arrests or ODs from Heroin.

I was offered Heroin before for free. Turned it down. I'll stick with Cannabis thanks.

[hack89]

15. 185 heroin deaths in MA, 45 in RI, 22 in PA - all in the past 4 months

There has been a huge spike in heroin deaths in the NE due to fentanyl laced heroin


http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/185-dead-heroin-overdose-mass-cops-article-1.1701795

http://www.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/content/20140117-overdose-deaths-in-r.i.-spike-to-22-in-13-days.ece

[Comrade Grumpy]

17. That's a function of drug prohibition and the black market.

In an unregulated (black) market, there are no quality controls, no warning labels. You don't know what you're getting.

The folks at the North American Opiate Maintenance Initiative (NAOMI) in Vancouver supervised 90,000 injections of pharmaceutical grade heroin, had 11 overdoses and no fatalities.

Still, even properly labeled opiates can kill you if you're not careful.