I don't think this proves that prevention messages are not getting through, but it does say that as each new generation comes along, we have to reiterate those messages. While the report covers only New Jersey, and includes only the habits of addicts in drug treatment facilities, DiFerdinando says other states should be equally concerned about the findings. Indeed, while urban heroin use fell in the 1990s the number of suburban and rural addicts seeking treatment tripled. Dr. Terry Horton, medical director of Phoenix House, an umbrella group of 80 drug treatment facilities in eight states, says the New Jersey findings aren't surprising. Inhaled heroin has become purer in recent decades, which allows experimenters a chance to try the drug without a needle.
Addicts often start shooting up the drug because they get a more potent high for their money.
A write-up of the New Jersey drug problem appears in the May 18 issue of the CDC publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report , which includes several other studies of injected drug use in the United States. Increase seen in needle exchanges One, by New York researchers, showed that the number of known needle exchange programs in this country nearly doubled between 1994 and 1998, from 68 to 131. In that time, the number of syringes passed out more than doubled, from 8 million in 1994 to 19.4 million in 1998. Thirty one states, along with Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, and 81 cities were running syringe swapping efforts in 1998, many of which provide addiction counseling, HIV testing, vaccinations and other health services. Mytri Pritam Singh, a needle exchange expert at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City and leader of that study, says the number of known programs has continued to swell, reaching 168 last March.