NCJ Number
178577
Date Published
1998
Length
10 pages
Annotation
Heroin is discussed in terms of the flow of heroin into the United States, the heroin abuse problem, and the organized criminal groups responsible for the manufacture and sale of this drug.
Abstract
Heroin quickly addicts even those who have used it only a few times. The need to inject heroin due to its low purity and the shifts in drug abuse due to awareness of AIDS were two factors that stigmatized heroin and limited its popularity over the past several decades. However, heroin use is rapidly increasing due to the purity of the supply and the development of heroin chic by members of the entertainment and fashion industries. The first major influx of heroin into the United States occurred between 1967 and 1971 and involved Turkish opium processed in laboratories in France and supplied to Italian organized crime families in New York. Heroin produced in Mexico supplanted European heroin in the mid-1970s. The heroin market in the mid-1980s was shared by drug traffickers from Mexico, Southwest Asia and the Middle East, and the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia. Heroin is increasingly available from South America and Mexico. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is addressing the threat posed by Colombian and Dominican trafficking groups by focusing its resources against the communications network of the Colombian cell managers. Heroin seizures have increased along the Texas-Mexico border in recent years. Drug law enforcement efforts are also focusing actively on heroin from the Golden Triangle and from Southwest Asia. Nigerian drug trafficking organizations are also posing an increasingly sophisticated threat to the United States, particularly through the use of express mail service. DEA staff are working tirelessly to bring the drug offenders to justice.