25
How Serious a Problem Is Heroin Addiction?
which has a population of 340,000, the heroin situation has reached the
crisis stage. Fifty-five people in Anoka County have died of heroin-related
causes since 1999. Although one other Minnesota county had fifty-eight
heroin-related deaths during that same period, its population is more than
three times greater than Anoka’s. “It hit
us in the face in the form of dead bod-
ies,” says Dan Douglas, who is a detective
with the Anoka County sheriff ’s office.
“We didn’t know how bad it was until it
was too late here in our community.”
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Like so many other communities
across the United States, Anoka Coun-
ty’s heroin problem is closely tied to pre-
scription drug abuse. Douglas says that
when he first began supervising a county
task drug force in 2009 heroin was not
really a concern. Then officers began to
notice a steady rise in pharmacy robber-
ies and were often finding Percocet and
OxyContin when they made routine
marijuana busts. After federal and state law enforcement began clamping
down on illegal distribution of prescription opioids, the heroin problem
in Anoka County began to soar.
One Anoka County resident who died from a heroin overdose was
Tanner Pap, a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Minne-
sota. An athlete who had graduated from high school with honors, Pap
had dreams of pursuing a career as a psychologist and drug counselor.
Until he died on November 9, 2012, neither family members nor col-
lege roommates had any idea that he used heroin or any other drugs.
His mother was shocked as well as devastated at the loss of her son. “I
thought my suburban, middle-class family was immune to drugs such as
this,” she says. “I’ve come to realize that we are not immune. . . . Heroin
will welcome anyone into its grasp.”
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Crisis in New England
Heroin problems are gripping communities all over America—even in
places that most people would consider unlikely, such as New England.
New England
has long been
known for its
charm and
beauty. But in
recent years the
region has be-
come known for
something else:
a devastating
heroin problem.
“
”
