WBBM-TV Chicago (6/29) reports, “A new study finds that Chicago has the worst heroin problem in the country.” The Chicago Tribune (6/29, Keilman, 534K) reports that Roosevelt University researchers found “that the area has seen an increase in people admitted to emergency rooms for heroin-related problems.” The area “now has more than any other metropolitan area. Other trouble signs include soaring overdose deaths in the collar counties, a high percentage of inmates at the Cook County Jail testing positive for heroin and an increase in the number of people injecting the drug.” The study “offered no estimate of the percentage of area residents using the drug, but a national survey shows that only 0.2 percent of Americans have used it in the last year, compared with 10 percent who have used marijuana and two percent who have used cocaine.”

The Chicago Sun-Times (6/29, Thomas, 292K) reports that the study, “which is based on federal and state data on admissions to hospitals and drug treatment programs, as well as county death records,” found that “in 2008, there were nearly 24,000 heroin-related hospital admissions in the Chicago area, more than in any of the 12 other cities included in the federal government‟s Drug Abuse Warning Network. New York and Boston had the next-highest totals.” The Chicago Sun-Times notes, “While heroin users in Chicago tend to be middle-age and black, suburban users are more likely to be under 25 and white, researchers found. Young whites are also much more likely than blacks to inject heroin — a factor fueling a significant increase in injection drug use in Illinois over the last 10 years,” said Kathleen Kane-Willis, one of the co-authors of the study. Kane-Willis said that “Chicago‟s status as a transportation hub and the increasing purity of heroin from South America and Mexico make it a cheaply available drug.”

The Chicago Daily Herald (6/29, Constable, 130K) reports, “Acknowledging that their research showing a rise in heroin use in Illinois is „scary,‟” Kane-Willis and co-author Stephanie Schmitz “point out that their research was limited to arrest records, coroner reports, government health programs and other public data. „The picture could actually be much worse,‟ Schmitz says, explaining that heroin victims treated in private facilities or in other states don‟t get counted in Illinois.” Kane-Willis said, “Especially among white, middle class or upper middle class, I think the numbers of heroin users is much larger.”

The Northwest Herald (6/29, Duchnowski) reports, “The Roosevelt University study suggested more sweeping public policy, such as providing comprehensive drug education, increasing treatment funding, and increasing the availability of syringe and syringe exchange programs.” It “also suggested increasing education and administration of heroin overdose antidotes such as Naloxone.”

On their websites, WGN-TV (6/28, Hayes) and WLS-TV Chicago (6/29) and NBC Chicago (6/29, Bartosik) and North Carolina‟s HULIQ (6/29, Lucey) also cover the story.

Source: ONDCP News Briefing

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