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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 18. 26th July 1973

Drugs hit black community hardest: Heroin addiction on decline?

page 8

Drugs hit black community hardest: Heroin addiction on decline?

Heroin addiction, according to the Nixon administration, has begun to recede. Can it be that the government is really winning its war against what President Nixon called "public enemy number one?"

In the most limited sense, the answer seems to be yes. There are only three ways that the great unknown army of addicts can be counted: when they get arrested, die or surrender themselves for rehabilitation. The statistical count for addicts in the first two categories is shrinking.

But while the number of heroin addicts is said to be decreasing, the number of people addicted to other drugs is increasing. Like quicksilver, the problems caused by heroin are simply being scattered to reappear in other forms.

Drug addiction is not new in the U.S. Morphine was so widely used during the Civil War that drug addiction was called "the soldiers' disease." It is estimated that there were more narcotics addicts in the U.S. before World War 1 than there are today.

Morphine and heroin were made illegal without prescription in 1914 and by World War 2. the number of addicts was down to 20.000 In 1965, there were only 57,000 drug addicts But that number increased at least tenfold in seven years. Although the government says that there are 600,000 addicts now, some researchers claim that there may be up to three million. At least two-thirds of all drug addicts are black, Latin. Asian or Native American. In Harlem, one of every six persons is an addict.

The leading cause of death among black adolescents in the last decade was due to drug addiction. Heroin has literally decimated many urban black communities.

There are very good reasons to believe that if heroin addiction really is decreasing it has little to do with the efforts of federal, state or local officials. Attempts to keep heroin out of the U.S. and to remove drug pushers from circulation, are failures even by the government's own standards.

The amount of heroin seized by police last year—about 860 pounds—was only a small percentage of the 12,000 to 24,000 pounds believed to have entered the U.S. Much of the seized heroin ends up in the pockets of policemen who have made the resale of confiscated heroin a profitable business.

The real role of the police seems to have been to protect drug traffickers. Detroit policemen recently shot and killed Mark Bethune, a young black man reportedly involved in efforts to fight distribution in the black community. Jimmy Hardy, organizer of a black community group in Cincinnati, was framed on a burglary charge after he released a list of city officials, businessmen and policemen he said took part in local narcotics traffic. Los Tres del Barrio, three young Chicanos from Los Angeles, are a similar case. The most famous of these cases is that of H. Rap Brown and three other men jailed for allegedly holding up a New York City bar which is a reputed focal point for the Harlem narcotics trade.

On a smaller scale, dozens of efforts to remove drugs from black and Latin communities or to truly rehabilitate addicts, has met with police repression. In many areas, rehabilitation programs were set up only after fierce community struggle, such as the Lincoln Hospital detoxification program in New York City, which was the result of a sit-in at the hospital.

What, then, is responsible for the recent optimistic figures on declining heroin addiction?

Part of the answer, of course, is simple electoral maneuvering. Last March, Nixon announced that "this administration has declared all-out global war on the drug menace." Since the President's own advisors had been saying for some time that heroin addiction was no longer on the rise, it was certainly to Nixon's advantage to declare a war he could win for once.

Another part of the answer is that the official statistics are an attempt to define the problem out of existence. If heroin and only heroin is considered, then the problem seems to be coming under control. But the illegal consumption of barbiturates, cocaine and the latest "hip" drug—methaqualone— are at a record high. All of these are as destructive as heroin and barbiturates are considerably more addictive. Barbiturate deaths are soaring. Exact national statistics have not yet appeared but there are, at least, two local surveys.

A survey of 6000 junior high and high school students in Kansas City, Mo., reported that 13 percent of the students used barbiturates. The New York Post, questioning city public school drug counselors, found that barbiturates are fast replacing heroin.

Drawing of an American syringe and a man with his hands up

Most of these drugs are produced legally in the U.S. although their sales are illegal. Their use, on one hand, should be compared to the more than 80 million people in the U.S. who drink liquor regularly or the estimated 5 to 10 percent of the adult population who are considered alcoholics.

But there is another kind of legal addiction that many experts consider even more insidious—methadone. Methadone addiction is the fastest-growing of all in the U.S. When taken in a clinic, however, methadone is considered drug therapy rather than drug abuse.

At the beginning of this year there were almost 100,000 legal methadone addicts. This means more than one out of six heroin addicts had "switched" to methadone in giving up the heroin habit. The real effect of methadone programs, however, is only beginning to be seen.

Federal narcotics control funds, which jumped from $28 million in 1969 to $386 million this year, are concentrated in two areas: beefing up police forces and opening new methadone programs Last fall, New York City Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy announced the beginning of a massive campaign "to encourage addicts to seek treatment before they commit crimes"—in other words, to recruit them into methadone programs.

Inexpensive Trap

Why is methadone so popular among law enforcement officials? First, it's the cheapest method of "treatment" practiced in the U.S. Treatment in a theraputic community, such as Synanon, costs about $8000 yearly per addict. Jail costs about the same. An addict on methadone, however, consumes only $2000 worth of the drug annually and with a little prodding, can hold down a job to support that habit.

Earlier in this century, heroin was first introduced into the U.S. as a cure for morphine addiction. It was not until a decade later that the cure was recognized as worse than the disease. The same pattern may yet be repeated with methadone.

Methadone was discovered in Germany [unclear: during] World War 2 and used as a substitute for morhphine when morphine's opium base could no longer be easily acquired. It was first named Dolophine; after Adolf Hitler.

Taken in doses of 80 to 160 milligrams daily, methadone eliminates the addict's physical craving for heroin. If the addict does take heroin, the methadone will completely block its "high" effect.

In other words, the only reason an addict would voluntarily take methadone is to avoid the extremely painful process of heroin withdrawal. But there is a catch to it: methadone is ten times as addictive as heroin. Many authorities believe that methadone patients can never stop taking the drug Dr. Vincent Dole, an originator of methadone therapy and its chief defender, explains:

"It does not strike me as relevant whether these patients ever get off methadone. Some may want to and that's fine but what's relevant is that a treatment can be developed so that an addict can become a socially useful citizen."

A methadone addict, however, explains it in a different light. "Your memory is reduced to a childlike state; waking up in the middle of the night you can't feel your heartbeat, panic, think, worry paranoia; but all the time knowing that with sunrise you'll have to get some more poison. The maddening cycle never ends "

The methadone "cure" is simply repeating the pattern of heroin before it. No one knows why some people take narcotics and others, in the same situation, do not, nor is it well understood why drug addiction seems to run in cycles.

But the heroin plague hurts the oppressed nationalities and working class the most, while the bourgeoisie—and especially the state—have been strengthened by it. It is clear whom addiction serves.

As one particularly bitter addict explained his methadone experience, "See, they do care whether you stay on or stay off They don't want you to get off."

From "The Guardian"

Printed by Wanganui Newspapers Ltd. P.O. Box 433, Wanganui, and published by the Victoria University of Wellington Students Association (Inc.) P.O. Box 196 Wellington N.Z.