News
Out of the Shadows
As heroin addiction increases, Humboldt sees a surge in drug seizures By Kimberly Wear kim@northcoastjournal.com
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ust three drug busts between August and November — including one of the largest in recent history — helped push the amount of heroin seized by the Humboldt County Drug Task Force in 2018 into the record books. Over the course of 2018, the multi-agency investigative team recovered nearly 35 pounds of the drug — more than double the volume confiscated in the previous six years combined. While more of the highly addictive narcotic is now off of the streets, the disturbing spike also speaks to the increasing stranglehold heroin has on a growing segment of the local community. But according to Sgt. Jesse Taylor of the task force, that’s only one part of a multi-faceted explanation for the sudden explosion in heroin confiscation numbers. And, he says, the North Coast is not alone in battling the incursion of a drug once relegated to the shadows but has emerged to near commonplace stature over the last decade. In fact, according to a recent report from the nonprofit National Safety Council, a person in the U.S. now has a greater chance of dying from an accidental opioid overdose than a vehicle crash. “Unfortunately, I think it’s going to be a trend. … I don’t see this issue going away,” Taylor says of the situation in Humboldt County. Taylor says back when he first started on patrol in 2002, methamphetamine use was widespread, while heroin arrests were rare with just a “handful of addicts and we knew who they were.” Now, even as meth remains “king” on the Humboldt County drug scene, its opioid cousin is gaining ground. “It’s become such a widespread thing that it’s almost commonplace to see someone nodding off in their car or in a park (from heroin use),” he says. “It’s unfortunate that that’s what it’s become.” Taylor says people struggling with
opioid addictions will often tell the same story of how they ended up on painkillers following a car accident or other medical issue, which eventually spiraled down into heroin or related drug use. “It doesn’t happen overnight but it certainly happens a lot,” he says. The shocking levels of opioid prescriptions in the county — with nearly one for every man, woman and child — and, in turn, one of the highest overdose rates in the state have long been of community concern. According to statics from the California Department of Public Health, there were 135,617 such prescriptions made out to local residents in 2017, although that number had dropped by 17 percent to 123,616 by the second quarter of 2018. Correspondingly, the county had the second-highest fatal opioid overdose rate in California in 2017, with 28 of the 2,196 recorded in the state happening locally, according to CDPH stats. Preliminary data from the Humboldt County Coroner’s Office show there were 26 accidental overdoes through November of 2018. While only one was solely attributed to heroin, at least 15 involved a type of opioid. Last year, the county of Humboldt, city of Eureka and local tribes joined a federal lawsuit against some of the largest manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioids in the United States, alleging they promoted their use in a reckless way while downplaying risks of addiction and overdose. When Humboldt Bay Fire announced in November that Narcan, a medication that can be used to reverse the deadly effects of an opioid overdose, would be carried by all apparatus, the agency noted how opioid use has “become prevalent not only throughout our community but the country.” But along with acknowledgment of the epidemic has come a backlash from Continued on next page »
northcoastjournal.com • Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019 • NORTH COAST JOURNAL
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