[March 10, 2014]WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U.S. Attorney
General Eric Holder said his agency was stepping up efforts to stem
sharp increases in deadly heroin overdoses, trafficking in the drug and
abuse of prescription narcotics at the root of what he called an "urgent
public health crisis."
As part of that campaign, Holder reiterated the Obama
administration's call for more law enforcement agencies to train and
equip personnel with an overdose-reversal medication called
naloxone.
The director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy issued a similar plea to police and fire departments last
month.
Holder said 17 states and the District of Columbia have amended
their laws to increase access to naloxone, a blocking agent that can
reverse the effects of an overdose and help restore breathing.
He said emergency use of naloxone had resulted in more than 10,000
overdose reversals since 2001.
Still, fatal heroin overdoses have increased 45 percent from 2006 to
2010, with 3,038 such deaths reported that year, and the numbers are
believed to still be on the rise, according to the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration.
The rising level of heroin use in recent years stems from a
corresponding epidemic in the abuse of prescription opiate-based
painkillers, such as oxycodone, DEA officials say. Deaths from
overdoses of such drugs numbered more than 16,600 in 2010.
Many individuals who start out abusing oxycodone turn eventually to
heroin as they build up a tolerance to the pain pills and find that
they can buy heroin far more cheaply than prescription medications
on the black market, experts say.
Meanwhile, trafficking in heroin, the bulk of it smuggled into the
United States from Mexico, has climbed in conjunction with
increasing demand.
"When confronting the problem of substance abuse, it makes sense to
focus attention on the most dangerous types of drugs. And right now,
few substances are more lethal than prescription opiates and
heroin," Holder said in a video message posted on Monday on the
Justice Department's website.
Holder said the DEA was leading a federal enforcement crackdown, and
cited a 320 percent increase in the amount of heroin seized by U.S.
authorities along the U.S.-Mexico border between 2008 and 2013.
The federal government also is enlisting the help of physicians,
teachers, police and community leaders to boost support for
substance abuse education, prevention and treatment, Holder said.
He said the DEA was focusing such efforts in regions experiencing a
particularly high incidence of heroin abuse, such as in northern
Ohio, where numbers of heroin-related deaths had recently jumped
four-fold.
National attention on heroin abuse was riveted by the case of
acclaimed actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was found dead from an
accidental drug overdose in his Manhattan apartment last month, a
needle still in his arm.
An autopsy determined the performer succumbed to acute intoxication
from a mixture of heroin, cocaine and other drugs in his system.
(Reporting by David Ingram; writing by Steve Gorman;
editing by Eric
Walsh)
