Metro battles its latest scourge: Heroin

By Robert Allen and By Bill Laitner, Detroit Free Press 8:19 a.m. EDT July 22, 2015 Detroit police released this image of a "set-up" that Police Chief James Craig said was being sold at a gas station at John R and 8 Mile to accommodate cocaine and heroin users. Detroit Police Dept. Woodward Corridor raid result in arrests.

Law enforcement agencies said Tuesday they are stepping up efforts to stop a surge of heroin sales by dealers in Detroit’s Woodward Corridor mainly to suburban customers, many of them from Oakland County.

In Pontiac, Oakland County officials announced they are launching several initiatives aimed at stemming the supply of prescription pain relievers, whose addictive lure is widely thought to underlie southeast ’s spiraling problem with heroin. Countless abusers of the pain pills ultimately turn to stronger, cheaper heroin, said officials on both sides of 8 Mile Road.

Watch: Reporter Robert Allen from the scene on Periscope

And in Detroit, a task force of federal, state and local police agencies executed a dozen search warrants and made two arrests along a two-mile stretch of Woodward and nearby streets, from McNichols north to 8 Mile, Detroit police said. The agents targeted homes, a gas station and other sites where police said suburban heroin buyers had been driving up to buy heroin almost as easily as making a run for coffee.

Police said they seized nine guns, including three AK-47s and a submachine gun, in the early- morning raids by SWAT teams dressed in camouflage.

The raids focused on blighted neighborhoods just across Woodward Avenue from the rolling fairways of Palmer Park’s golfers and the leafy, winding streets of the upscale Palmer Woods area.

Hours later in Pontiac, Oakland County officials announced several new initiatives aimed at curbing what they characterized as an epidemic of prescription drug abuse that underlies the growing use of heroin in .

Related:Fentanyl faulted in dozens of metro Detroit deaths Opiod pain pills, such as Vicodin and the generic hydrocodone, are widely prescribed by doctors and dentists for everything from sports injuries to oral surgery. But they create addicts who eventually move on to less-costly heroin, once the pain pills no longer produce a sufficient “high,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.

“We didn’t plan our announcement to be on the same day as those raids in Detroit, but it’s not a coincidence of cause — the two problems are very closely related,” Bouchard said.

The fast route that many abusers take, from highly addictive pain relievers to the more affordable heroin, “is why we’re seeing heroin abuse now everywhere, in every county” of Michigan and the nation, Bouchard said.

His comments came after Oakland County health officials announced a new push to alert doctors, dentists, nurse practitioners and other health providers of the need to monitor the status of individuals who’ve received prescriptions for opiod pain relievers.

The state’s system for monitoring prescriptions is voluntary on the part of pharmacies and health-care providers and even those who do participate often fail to enter patient data promptly — allowing an addict to get repeat prescriptions from different providers, said George Miller, director of health and human services for Oakland County.

In addition, “we are asking people at home to monitor how many prescriptions they have of these products and even how many pills are in the vial” to forestall having children, grandchildren or visitors remove pills, Miller said.

The proliferation of such pain relievers has made them the nation’s most commonly prescribed medicines nationwide, according to the federal government’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. And their popularity among abusers has led to the sometimes deadly pattern of heroin users from suburbia making heroin purchases in the inner city, said Oakland County Medical Examiner L.J. Dragovic.

Chart: Oakland County drug-related deaths since 2012

In Oakland County, “our heroin-related deaths about doubled” annually from 2012 to 2014, Dragovic said. Oakland County drug-related deaths

The number of confirmed heroin-related deaths increased from 18 in 2012 to 61 in 2014. This year, there have been 19 confirmed heroin deaths in Oakland County.

The county’s confirmed heroin-related deaths increased from 18 in 2012 to 61 in 2014, according to Robert Gerds, administrator with the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office. So far this year, there have been 19 confirmed heroin deaths. But the numbers are likely higher since the metabolite distinguishing heroin from other opiates disappears from the body fairly quickly, Gerds said. In 2012, there were 316 opiate deaths; last year, there were 324, he said. In addition, Oakland County deputies used the heroin antidote Narcan to save the lives of nine overdose victims this year — the first year of Narcan use in Michigan, said Capt. Joseph Quisenberry of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.

In Detroit, Police Chief James Craig said the drug raids in the Woodward Corridor will make the city safer.

“It does have a direct impact, a direct effect on reducing violence,” he said. Along with heroin, police seized cocaine and marijuana in the raids, he said.

The FBI issued a news release Tuesday stating that the raids had disrupted a “large-scale” and “violent” heroin ring, through the collaboration of numerous agencies.

One resident of a Detroit neighborhood that was raided — Robert Pizzimenti, 53 — said that police arrived about 5 a.m. on Goldengate near Woodward. Pizzimenti said three men he knew had been arrested and he called them good neighbors, who would sometimes watch over his business — Innate Healing Center.

But he admitted that the trio sold crack cocaine and heroin to customers driving into Detroit from Oakland County.

Pizzimenti also said there once was a shooting nearby that apparently involved rival drug dealers.

Heroin abuse is an escalating problem not only in metro Detroit but statewide. Across Michigan, the number of heroin-related drug overdose deaths has risen dramatically — from 37 in 1999 to 369 in 2013, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

Craig said the raids occurred after receiving complaints, and police continue to encourage residents to call Crime Stoppers at 800-SPEAKUP (800-773-2587) with tips.

“We are not going to back off,” Craig said. “And so the message is clear: Not here.”