White House takes steps to slow heroin epidemic

WASHINGTON – The White House is zeroing in on the growing heroin epidemic, announcing federal funding Monday to combat use of the drug with a focus on both public health and safety.

About $2.5 million from President Barack Obama’s anti-drug programs will target heroin abuse in New England, Appalachia and East Coast cities, and $1.3 million will go to fight trafficking on the border with Mexico, drug czar Michael Botticelli said.

Public health coordinators will monitor heroin use and issue warnings regarding dangerous batches of the drug. Public safety coordinators will work with law enforcement to stem illegal imports.

Botticelli said the benefits that would come from cooperation between public health officials and law enforcement.

Heroin addiction has been an especially intractable problem in the United States, health professionals say. The path to heroin addiction and overdoses can begin when patients are legally prescribed drugs containing opium, said Dr. Walter Ling, professor of psychiatry and founding director of the Integrated Substance Abuse Program at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The large numbers of prescriptions created “fertile ground for a heroin epidemic,” said Keith Humphreys, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Medical School.

“Youngsters begin to use them and get them from their grandma’s medicine cabinet because they’re available,” Ling added.

“Once they get hooked they find out it’s very expensive to get these medicines and it’s much cheaper on the street. That leads to street heroin abuse, which leads to the increase in opium overdoses,” Ling said.

Botticelli also said cheap heroin with additives had been linked to the increase in abuse of the drug.

Funding came from Obama administration reserves “to deal with pressing issues,” Botticelli said.