Community activists and police say the focus on Carroll County should help combat a problem that began sweeping through Maryland's suburbs a few years ago. It is better to publicize the problem than deny it, they say. Michael College, supervisor of the drug task force at the Westminster barracks. Lynne Asher said she danced on the Block in Baltimore, shoplifted and lived on the streets to support the heroin habit that she developed as a student at Francis Scott Key High School in Uniontown. Heroin's a street drug.
Numbers show that heroin has made inroads in Carroll and other suburban counties.
Carroll County had nine heroin deaths from January 1996 through June of this year. Since 1990, the number of heroin users in treatment has more than doubled in Carroll and has increased by more than 40 percent in Anne Arundel and Howard counties. Harford County also has been hard hit. The number of heroin patients admitted to Harford hospitals has increased steadily, jumping from 89 in 1992 to 291 last year. Eric Wish, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Research, said that although Carroll's numbers are low, surveys show more county youths are getting hooked on heroin.