Concern over growing heroin use

Hoffman: celebrity tragedy.

By Emoke Bebiak/New York

Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death of a suspected heroin overdose has cast a harsh spotlight on the dangers of drug use as the US is grappling with a new trend in narcotics consumption.

The Oscar-winning Hoffman, 46, was found dead on Sunday in his apartment, a syringe dangling in his left arm. The celebrity tragedy underlines a growing problem: people who become addicted to strictly controlled prescription opiates turning to heroin, a street drug that is cheaper and often mixed with other chemicals, with dangerously unpredictable results.

While an initial autopsy released on Wednesday showed no clear indication for the cause of Hoffman’s death, authorities found prescription drugs, used syringes and 50 small bags containing suspected heroin in his apartment.

Heroin laced with other drugs has highly erratic effects, leading to a rising number of deaths by overdose, said Anand Veeravagu, senior neurosurgery resident at Stanford University School of Medicine, in an interview with National Public Radio.

“The intravenous drug itself is being mixed with other drugs, and you have this poly-drug toxicity that is completely unpredictable,” Veeravagu said. “That is probably what is responsible for the increasing number of deaths that we’re seeing.”

In 2013, Glee actor Cory Monteith died from an overdose of heroin and alcohol, a common but dangerous combination of substances.

A report from the US Department of Health and Human Services showed that the number of people who said they used heroin in the previous year rose from 404,000 in 2002 to 669,000 in 2012.

Heroin seizures went up 30% in the same decade, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

Heroin’s resurgence has been most pronounced in the northeastern US, where dozens of people have died due to heroin use this year alone.

In Pennsylvania, 15 people died in one week in January from injecting a mix of heroin and fentanyl, used as a painkiller for cancer patients, broadcaster CNN reported.

Maryland officials said last week that heroin tainted with other chemicals has killed at least 37 people since September.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin spent almost his entire State of the State speech last month focusing on the severity of the heroin problem in a rural state known more for bucolic scenery than intravenous drug use.

“What started as an oxycontin and prescription drug addiction problem in Vermont has now grown into a full-blown heroin crisis,” Shumlin said. “It threatens the safety that has always blessed our state.”

Through the investigation into Hoffman’s death, authorities have founds leads into the heroin trade in the New York area.

On Tuesday, police arrested four people and seized 350 bags of heroin from three apartments, The New York Times reported.

The three men and one woman arrested have not been charged with selling drugs, the report said. While police haven’t established a direct link between the four people arrested and the actor, they said leads found during the investigation led them to the apartments. –DPA