TRENTON — A growing number of young people are using prescription pills to get high, because they’re widely available and seemingly harmless fun. But that practice can lead to deep addiction and eventual heroin abuse, experts testified Wednesday before the State Commission on Investigation.
The hearing was part of a state investigation on the abuse of prescription pills and its ties to heroin use and drug trafficking. It’s an issue that’s gripped many North Jersey police departments, which have reported a rise in overdoses, arrests and burglaries linked to heroin addition, and many say pills are the root of the problem.
“It’s available. They come and get their hands on it and whey they get addicted to it, what’s the next step? They go to heroin,” said Lt. Thomas Dombroski of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office.
The Center for Disease Control found in a 2009 survey that 1 in 5 high school students have taken a prescription drug without a doctor’s prescription. The problem is aided by “dirty doctors” who prescribe painkillers to people who don’t need them, either for money or because they’re indifferent to whether there’s a real need, police said.
Part of the problem is that pills don’t carry the same stigma as street drugs and young people are often oblivious to the risks; officials said they pop pills for fun at home, at parties and even at school, and eventually they are hooked.
“It’s not the same stigma you’ll see attached to an IV heroin user with the classic image of a junkie on the street sitting there in the corner with a needle stuck in his arm,” said SCI Investigative Agent Edwin Torres.
Addicts who can no longer get pills or afford them will often turn to heroin, which like many painkillers is opiate-based. The cost of a pill ranges from $20 to $80 depending on brand and strength, but heroin is to be had at $5 or $10 for a “glassine” bag the size of a stamp.
Two recovering addicts told the commission through videotaped testimony that they never imagined they would use heroin — until they were so deep in addiction that dozens of pills couldn’t sustain them through the day, and not being high meant physical pain and nausea one said was “20 times worse than the flu.”
“It never crosses your mind until you get to that point,” said a 21-year-old man from South Jersey, who started using pills at 11 before becoming a dealer and heroin addict.
In Vernon, a township of 25,000 people that borders Passaic County, addiction has taken a deadly toll: in the past four years, nine recent high school graduates have died of overdose from pills or heroin or a combination of both, Vernon Detective Sgt. Brian Jernick told commissioners.
He said he has seen addicts steal from family and friends or burglarize homes and businesses — anything to get money for the next fix.
“Every day an addict wakes up and all he cares about is getting high,” Jernick said. “Nothing else matters.”
Heroin trafficking is still the domain of gangs in Paterson, Newark and New York City, police said. But processing — the cutting and packaging of the drug — can now be found in the suburbs, as evidenced by a recent police bust of a heroin mill in a residential basement in Fort Lee, Dombroski said.
Unlike in other counties, cocaine still outpaces heroin in street sales in Bergen County, Dombroski said. But, he added: “There’s definitely a trend in heroin being more and more available.”
The hearing was a first step in an ongoing investigation, said SCI Chairman Patrick Hobbs.
“The SCI will continue to look at this and in time will bring forward recommendations in the hope that we can, for at least some of the population of the state, end the pain and cycle that these drugs cause,” he said.
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