Valley heroin issues take center stage

WASILLA — Medical practitioners and community groups said Monday they struggled to resolve issues surrounding the boom in heroin abuse in Alaska.

Data provided by the Mat-Su Health Foundation presented at suggest about 0.4 percent of Valley residents had reported using heroin in 2011, though a Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted in 2013 showed the number of Valley high school students who reported using heroin was about 8 percent among alternative high school students, roughly four times the rate among traditional high school students. Medical providers shows offered several heartrending anecdotes about users of the drug, and discussed anecdotes from the front lines.

For example, Alaska State Trooper Joel Miner talked about finding heroin in cars stopped for traffic infractions on the night shift.

“Within about seven or ten stops, I can usually find heroin,” he said.

Minor told the audience he asked frequently contacted drug users about how they came to heroin in the first place, and said the stories — when stories were shared — generally followed three themes: they first encountered the drug through use of other drugs, as in marijuana laced with heroin; they were pressured into trying the drug by friends; or they started they started using heroin to as a substitute for prescribed opioid medicines they had been prescribed by doctors, Minor said. One user told him Miner troopers would never find him with drugs on his person, because he used them as soon as he got them.

“He told me ‘You may find a couple dirty rigs on me, but you will never find me with drugs,’” he said.

For others, the confrontation with drugs was less professional and more personal. Panel moderator Phillip Licht, the executive director of Set Free Alaska, won his own battle, but said there were still casualties.

“On a personal level, I myself have struggled and am in recovery, and I’ve come through the other side,” he told the audience. “And although I’m in a place of freedom in my life now, the issue of addiction still has incredible impact on my life. I have a loved one who’s struggling with heroin, is a very severe heroin addict.”

The ramifications can poison otherwise joyful moments, like watching the relative’s daughter cheerlead at a basketball game.

“I just couldn’t help but think in light of the time and discussion and we’re coming together tonight, how the absence of her father is going to impact her as she grows up,” he said.

Others, state Chief Medical Officer Jay Butler, described slow devolution from the introduction of painkiller oxycodone under the OxyContin trademark in 1996 (German chemists first synthesized oxycodone in 1916) to the recent boom in heroin as a substitute when prescription opioid medicines ran out.

About three-fourths of heroin users started with a prescription pain reliever, Butler said.

“The opioid story is one that is a road to hell paved with good intentions,” he said. “Historically, I think physicians have not done a good job treating pain, certainly through the 1970s and 1980s. Then I think there was more and more of a realization that there were certain pain syndromes, particularly for people with advanced cancer where we didn’t need to worry about the risk of addiction. That sort of then began to get a little bit out of control.”

Doctors, like Mat-Su Regional Medical Hospital emergency department physician Anne Zink, now struggle to match symptoms with causes.

“To look through the data and say what percentages, I couldn’t tell you because oftentimes on a day-to-day basis I don’t know,” she said. “Is that really appendicitis? Is that chronic constipation? Or is that just chronic anxiety because they’re in an abusive relationship at home? Or is this that they’re chronically abusing heroin and they’re chronically constipated from that? Those all present as abdominal patients.”

Despite anecdotal increases in the number and frequency of use, resources to combat addiction can sometimes be scarce. For example, the only medical detox program is located in Anchorage and is operated by the Cook Inlet Tribal Council and has about 14 beds. The valley maintains only one residential treatment location at Nugen's Ranch in Point MacKenzie. A single opioid outpatient detox operated by the Sunshine Clinic in Talkeetna has only 40 beds. A methodone clinic operated by Zipperer Medical Group recently closed. Eight groups provide recovery services.

Rebecca Ling works with the Council’s treatment plan, and said more resources were needed.

“I could go on and on about the barriers and struggles to providing detox, and the heart-wrenching phone calls, the questions, it’s horrible,” she said. “My kids going to die, my children died because you won’t take anymore. My daughter’s pregnant, you can’t take her. Well there’s no bed, there’s no bed. We definitely need more beds, more partners. I am also honored to try and find a solution for our family members, because it is a struggle.”

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.