Heroin in recent years has caught on in Harford County in a way that seems like it would have been hard to predict 25 or so years ago.
Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the smokable form of cocaine known as crack was at the forefront of the illicit drug trade. What were then known as "designer drugs" or "club drugs," substances like ecstasy were also in high profile positions in the contraband market.
Heroin was beginning to make inroads. There was even an early 1990s pop culture phenomenon, much criticized at the time, referred to as "heroin chic," which glamorized a certain pale and gaunt look.
Even then, most people had the sense to know that heroin is anything but glamorous. While "heroin chic" was short-lived, the drug itself took root with its market share growing to the point that local school officials are faced with battling a situation in which an estimated 5 percent of high school students in Maryland have tried the extremely addictive drug.
While school officials can and should include the stark details of what it means to be a heroin addict in their health programs, they face stiff challenges when trying to tackle heroin.
First, there's the matter that it is an addiction in the most extreme sense of the world. While other substances can be habit forming to the degree that they are difficult to quit, the heroin detoxification process involves going through a debilitating physical withdrawal. People who thought they were casual users can find themselves addicted before they have the chance to give it a second thought.
Then there's the issue of methods of use. The classic image associated with heroin addiction involves injection by syringe, but the drug can also be swallowed or smoked, making it seem comparable to other smoked or swallowed contraband that isn't necessarily as dangerous.
There's another factor at play insofar as it's a buyer's market. Heroin is fairly easy to come by, thanks in part to an international situation that has proven all but uncontrollable. Much of the world's heroin supply has long come from the mountainous regions of south central Asia, notably Afghanistan.
The various wars and insurrections that have plagued that country over the past two decades have made the cultivation of opium poppies very attractive in a land where the crop has been raised for generations.
A Nov. 14, 2014 article in The Wall Street Journal detailed some of the unfortunate realities. The amount of opium (from which heroin is made) produced by Afghanistan in 2014, as estimated by the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime, was 6,400 tons, a 17 percent increase over the previous year. Not surprisingly, the price of a kilogram (a little more than two pounds) of the heroin precursor was estimated to have fallen 20 percent to $114.
Plenty of supply. Falling prices. It's a buyer's market for a product buyers often find it hard to live without once they try it.
The Harford County experience with previous waves of drug use – from marijuana in the 1970s to crack in the 1980s to club drugs in the 1990s – has made it fairly evident that making arrests and imposing stiff sentences are tactics that, at best, have limited effects on the problem.
Education efforts conducted through schools or community organizations have a certain value, but also are limited.
Public health efforts have shown promise, but generally don't garner the kind of public support that is enjoyed by police crackdowns and education programs.
Dealing with heroin in Harford County isn't something that can be done in a vacuum. The opium boom in Afghanistan makes that clear. It would be foolish, however, to presume that because the problem is one with so many factors beyond Harford County borders there is nothing that can be done locally.
The proactive approach of the school system is a good start. It will take a lot more effort that includes a potentially expensive public health outreach, however, to deal with a drug problem that, because of its unusually strong addiction component, has staying power like no other.
Failing to make the effort will, however, have more dire costs.