Heroin addiction treatment

Heroin Treatment in Oregon

In the year of 2003, there were a documented 205 drug rehabilitation and addiction treatment centers in the state of Oregon. All of these centers combined to serve 19,451 clients for substance abuse problems.

Currently, Mexican black tar and brown heroin are the primary types of heroin distributed throughout Oregon State. Hispanic poly-drug trafficking rings control the market. Heroin continues to be transported from Mexico by a number of different methods, primarily by vehicles with hidden compartments for drugs. Most Heroin is typically transported over land to Portland via the Interstate 5 corridor from source cities in Mexico through middlemen in California State. Most of the Mexican traffickers belong to extended Hispanic families from regions such as Nayarit and Michoacan, where traffickers use their familial contacts in Mexico and the state of California to smuggle heroin into the region. Also, these organizations traffic in cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana, most of which comes from Mexico.

Nationwide household and school drug use surveys have not documented the shift in usage patterns or the increase in heroin use among young people that Dr. Wiebel and other substance abuse professionals have observed. Heroin statistics are hard to obtain from these instruments because heroin use involves less than 1 percent of the population and heroin users in general are not part of a traditional household society.

Although officials caution that estimates of drug-related hospital emergency visits could increase or decrease over time for reasons unrelated to the size of the drug-using population, these estimates at least hint of a change in heroin use in last years. Between 1992 and 1993, heroin-related hospital emergency department visits increased by 35 percent, from 5,900 to 7,900 among people ages 18 to 25, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), a national survey conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). During the same period, cocaine-related hospital emergencies changed little among this age group.