The Drug Enforcement Agency in Kansas City is seeing a disturbing trend spread across the metro, one which they say will likely lead to more violence throughout the city. The culprit is heroin, but the root of the problem is something less understood.
“I’m extremely concerned,” said Special Agent Troy Derby of the DEA.
Derby says they’ve seen a 20 percent rise in heroin over the past year, similar to St. Louis, which has seen a dramatic increase in violence in correlation with their heroin epidemic. However, according to experts, the main problem has been abuse of legal prescription opiates.
The root of the problem
"What's happened is people go into a doctor because of a physical ailment with pain. They're prescribed a pain killer. Most of the time we encounter OxyContin or Oxycodone ... And sometimes people are addicted after just one or two tablets ... When that prescription runs out they're forced to try to obtain OxyContin through buying it on the street ... They have to do something to come up with the money to purchase this. So they're forced to commit crimes or do other things to obtain the OxyContin. When that supply runs out, because it's not overly prevalent on the street, we find people resort to going to heroin. Heroin is much cheaper,” Derby said.
James Shroba, the special agent in charge of the St. Louis DEA, said during a phone interview, “In St. Louis the symptoms began about 2007 when we began to experience a rise in the quantity of heroin that was coming into tour communities.”
He said since that time, it “wouldn’t be an embellishment” to say that violent crime and homicide rates have risen dramatically. What’s worse is that heroin quality and accessibility have increased over that time as well because of the demand.
“In 2007 the average purity of heroin that was recovered as evidence was 11 percent. In 2015, the average purity is … 50 percent, and it’s not uncommon to see seizures in the 90 percent range. That means it increases the chance a user would overdose and it increases the supply,” said Shroba.
According to Shroba, Americans are 5 percent of the world’s population yet consume 99 percent of the supply of hydrocodone manufactured.
Megan McKamy is a substance abuse disease counselor at First Call in Kansas City. She’s also suffered from substance abuse disease, so she understands how legal prescription opiates can be just as addicting as illegal heroin.
'It just so happens that heroin is readily available in Kansas City at the moment, and so somebody who may have been prescribed an opiate for an injury or an accident suddenly finds themselves emotionally and physically dependent on this substance,” she said.
McKamy has seen a large rise in crisis calls involving heroin over the last year - calls from every walk of life.
"This disease cuts across all demographics. So I'll receive a call from somebody who's very, clearly from an affluent family and, you know, has private insurance or the means to pay for treatment, and I’ll get a call from somebody who doesn't have housing,” she said.
So what needs to be done?
McKamy says more doctors are reaching out for education on the topic of over-prescribed opiates. Also, it’s important to dispose unused or expired medication safely.
"If we can remove the opiates from the medicine cabinets and prevent some young person from trying an opiate product, we might save them from becoming addicted ... which could lead to heroin use,” said Derby
The DEA will have several locations setup throughout the metro on Saturday, April 30 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for people who would like to dispose of medications safely.
First Call is a nonprofit that helps people struggling with substance abuse. They have an emergency line which can be reached at 816-361-5900.
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Josh Helmuth can be reached at josh.helmuth@kshb.com
