Heroin

First synthesized from morphine in 1874, heroin was not extensively used in medicine until the early 1900s. Commercial production of the new pain remedy was first started in 1898. While it received widespread acceptance from the medical profession, physicians remained unaware of its potential for addiction for years. The first comprehensive control of heroin occurred with the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914. Today, heroin is an illicit substance having no medical utility in the United States. It is in Schedule I of the CSA.

Four foreign source areas produce the heroin available in the United States: South America (Colombia). Mexico, Southeast Asia (principally Burma), and Southwest Asia/Middle East (Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon). However, South America and Mexico supply most of the illicit heroin marketed in the United States. South American heroin is a high- purity powder primarily distributed to metropolitan areas on the East Coast. Heroin powder may vary in color from white to dark brown because of impurities left from the manufacturing process or the presence of additives. Mexican heroin, known as "black tar," is primarily available in the western United States. The color and consistency of black tar heroin result from the crude processing methods used to illicitly manufacture heroin in Mexico. Black tar heroin may be sticky like roofing tar or hard like coal, and its color may vary from dark brown to black.

Pure heroin is rarely sold on the street, and the average purity of heroin for major metropolitan areas nationally averaged about 37.2 percent in 2000. A "bag"-slang for a small unit of heroin sold on the street-currently contains about 30 to 50 milligrams of powder; only a portion of which is heroin; the remainder could be sugar, starch, acetaminophen, procaine, benzocaine, or quinine, to name a few of the cutting agents for heroin. Traditionally, the purity of heroin in a bag ranged from 1 to 10 percent. More recently, heroin purity has ranged from about 10 to 70 percent. Black tar heroin is often sold in chunks weighing about an ounce. Its purity is generally far less than South American heroin and it is most frequently dissolved, diluted, and injected.

Until recently, heroin in the United States was almost always injected, because this is the most practical and efficient way to administer low-purity heroin. However; the recent availability of higher purity heroin at relatively low cost has meant that a larger percentage of today's users are either snorting or smoking heroin, instead of injecting it. This trend was captured in the 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, which revealed that 60 to 70 percent of people who used heroin for the first time from 1996 to 1998 never injected it.

According to that survey, an estimated 73 percent of the 471,000 first-time heroin users (from 1996 to 1999) were under 25 years old. Snorting or smoking heroin is more appealing to these new users because it eliminates both the fear of acquiring syringe-borne diseases, such as HIV and hepatitis, as well as the social stigma attached to intravenous heroin use. Many new users of heroin mistakenly believe that smoking or snorting heroin is a safe technique for avoiding addiction. However, both the smoking and the snorting of heroin are directly linked to high incidences of dependence and addiction.

TRAFFICKING

Heroin is readily available in many U.S. cities as evidenced by the unprecedented high level of average retail, or street-level, purity. Criminals in four foreign source areas produce the heroin available in the United States: South America (Colombia), Southeast Asia (principally Burma), Mexico, and Southwest Asia/Middle East (principally Afghanistan). While virtually all heroin produced in Mexico and South America is destined for the U.S. market, each of the four source areas has dominated the U.S. market at some point over the past 30 years. Over the past decade, the United States has experienced a dramatic shift in the heroin market from the domination of Southeast Asian heroin to a dominance of the wholesale and retail markets by South American heroin, especially in the East. In the West, by contrast, "black tar" and, to a lesser extent, brown powdered heroin from Mexico have been, and continue to be, the predominant available form.

The increased availability of high-purity heroin, which can effectively be snorted, has given rise to a new, younger user population. While avoiding the stigma of needle use, this user group is ingesting larger quantities of the drug and, according to drug treatment specialists, progressing more quickly toward addiction.

South American Heroin

The availability of South American (SA) heroin, produced in Colombia, has increased dramatically in the United States since 1993. SA heroin is available in the metropolitan areas of the Northeast and along the East Coast. Independent traffickers typically smuggle SA heroin into the United States via couriers traveling aboard commercial airlines, with each courier usually carrying from 500 grams to 1 kilogram of heroin per trip. These traffickers increased their influence in the lucrative northeastern heroin market, which has the largest demand in the United States, by pursuing an aggressive marketing strategy. They distributed high-quality heroin (of purity frequently above 90 percent), undercut the price of their competition, and used their long-standing, effective drug distribution networks. Investigations also indicate the spread of SA heroin to smaller U.S. cities.

Since the mid-1990s, Colombian heroin traffickers have diversified their methods of operation. Couriers still come into Miami, New York City, San Juan, and other U.S. cities on direct commercial flights from Colombia. Increasingly, however, Colombian traffickers are smuggling heroin from Colombia into the United States through such countries as Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Mexico, Argentina, and Venezuela.

In response to increased drug law enforcement presence at eastern ports of entry, some SA heroin traffickers have sought alternative routes. They transship heroin through the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport before it reaches its final destination of New York City's LaGuardia Airport. Their couriers often transport heroin impregnated within clothing. Couriers with other destinations also smuggle the drug using this same method of concealment. In January 2002, USCS agents at the Miami International Airport arrested a courier who had arrived from Venezuela with 14 kilograms of heroin-saturated clothing. The following month, 18 kilograms of clothing saturated with heroin were seized in New York. Another increasingly used method is to smuggle heroin by sewing it into clothing. In New York in March 2002, two couriers were arrested at a hotel with approximately 8 to 10 kilograms of heroin sewn into 24 pieces of clothing. Also in New York that month, a married couple, Venezuelan nationals, who had arrived at JFK International Airport on a flight from Caracas, had in their luggage jackets that had a combined total of 6 kilograms of heroin sewn into them.

Colombian heroin traffickers have also used commercial maritime methods to move larger amounts of their drug into the United States. Some of the past maritime heroin shipments have been intermixed with larger shipments of cocaine, and some have been transported via cruise ships. Larger shipments of heroin have also been smuggled via containerized cargo, as evidenced by the May 16, 2001, seizure of 54 kilograms of SA heroin in New York. The heroin, packaged in 1.5 pound bricks, was secreted in false bottoms of 1,400 25-pound boxes of frozen plantains. This seizure represents the largest seizure of SA heroin to date in the United States.

Within the United States, ethnic Dominican criminal groups have played a significant role in retail-level heroin distribution in northeastern markets for at least the past two decades. During the 1990s, Dominican groups secured their role in the heroin trade by selling high-purity SA heroin. Currently, Dominican groups dominate retail heroin markets in northeastern cities such as New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. New York City is the primary base of operation for ethnic Dominican groups. Colombian distribution networks at the wholesale level deal directly with Dominican trafficking groups responsible for retail sales.

Mexican Heroin

Mexican heroin has been a threat to the United States for decades. It is produced, smuggled, and distributed by polydrug trafficking groups, many of which have been in operation for more than 20 years. Nearly all of the heroin produced in Mexico is destined for distribution in the United States. Organized crime groups operating from Mexico produce, smuggle, and distribute the black tar heroin sold in the western United States. Traditionally, trafficking groups operating from Mexico evaded interdiction efforts by smuggling heroin to the U.S. market as they received orders from customers. By keeping quantities small, traffickers hoped to minimize the risk of losing a significant quantity of heroin in a single seizure. Even large polydrug Mexican organizations, which smuggle multiton quantities of cocaine and marijuana, generally limited smuggling of Mexican heroin into the United States to kilogram and smaller amounts. Nevertheless, trafficking organizations were capable of regularly smuggling significant quantities of heroin into the United States.

Although illegal immigrants and migrant workers frequently smuggle heroin across the U.S./Mexico border in 1- to 3- kilogram amounts for the major trafficking groups, seizures indicate that larger loads are being moved across the border, primarily in privately owned vehicles. Once the heroin reaches the United States, traffickers rely upon well-entrenched polydrug smuggling and distribution networks to deliver their product to the market, principally in the metropolitan areas of the midwestern, southwestern, and western United States with sizable Mexican immigrant populations.

Indicative of larger shipments of Mexican heroin being smuggled into the United States are several seizures that occurred in the Southwest in recent years. Following a traffic stop in April 2002 near Pleasanton, Texas - about 25 miles south of San Antonio - Department of Public Safety troopers seized 34 kilograms of brown powder heroin. The heroin bundles, placed inside metal boxes, were found in all four tires of a pickup truck which was headed for San Antonio. In January 2001, the USCS in Del Rio, Texas, seized 42 kilograms of black tar heroin and in December 2000, they seized 27 kilograms of black tar heroin at the Laredo port of entry. Texas has not been the only border state where large amounts of black tar heroin have been seized. In October 2000, 46 kilograms of black tar heroin were seized in Arizona at the San Luis port of entry. This seizure ranks as one of the largest ever made along the Southwest border.

Although recent DEA cases have involved Mexican black tar heroin trafficking groups east of the Mississippi River, there has been no successful, long-term penetration of the East Coast markets by organizations selling Mexico-produced heroin.

Southeast Asian Heroin

High-purity Southeast Asian (SEA) heroin dominated the market in the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Over the past few years, however, all indicators point to a decrease in SEA heroin available domestically. Significant investigations led to the incarceration in Thailand and extradition to the United States of more than a dozen high-level violators who played key roles in moving SEA heroin shipments to the United States. SEA heroin trafficking links run from independent brokers and shippers in Asia through overseas Chinese criminal populations to ethnic Chinese criminal wholesale distributors in the United States. In the United States, ethnic Chinese criminals rely upon local criminal organizations for the distribution of SEA heroin. Despite the recent decline in the trafficking of SEA heroin in the United States, Chinese criminal groups remain the most sophisticated heroin trafficking organizations in the world.

SEA heroin shipments destined for U.S. markets may transit through China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, or South Korea. Largely independent U.S.-based ethnic Chinese traffickers control distribution within the United States, principally in the Northeast and along the East Coast. During the late 1990s, Vancouver, British Columbia, emerged as a key operational headquarters for ethnic Chinese criminal elements. These criminal groups were enmeshed with North American gangs of Asian descent in transporting SEA heroin to the United States, mainly to the East Coast. A DEA New York Field Division investigation led to the seizure, in January 2001, of 57 kilograms of SEA heroin from a container ship docked at the port in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The largest seizure of SEA heroin in recent years.

Trafficking groups composed of West African criminals also smuggle SEA heroin to the United States. Nigerian criminals have been most active in U.S. cities and areas with well-established Nigerian populations, such as Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston, Dallas, New York City, Newark, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. Over the past several years, Chicago has become a hub for heroin trafficking controlled by Nigerian criminals who primarily deal in SEA heroin.

Southwest Asian Heroin

While a large portion of Southwest Asian (SWA) heroin is consumed in Western Europe, Pakistan, and Iran, traffickers operating from Middle Eastern locations smuggle SWA heroin to ethnic enclaves in the United States. Criminal groups composed of ethnic Lebanese, Pakistanis, Turks, and Afghans are all involved in supplying the drug to U.S.-based groups for retail distribution. SWA heroin traffickers and wholesale distributors generally have been consistently cautious, rarely conducting heroin business with persons not of Southwest Asian or Middle Eastern ethnicity. Therefore, the ethnic aspect of SWA heroin importation and distribution has made SWA heroin more prevalent in areas with large Southwest Asian populations.

West African traffickers, who primarily smuggled SEA heroin to the United States in the 1990s, now also deal in SWA heroin. In a particularly noteworthy seizure of approximately 24 kilograms of heroin in New York in May 2000, 90 percent of the seized heroin consisted of SWA heroin, and the remaining 10 percent was SEA. While unusual, a shipment containing the two types of heroin is not unexpected. For the last several years, West African traffickers, based in Bangkok who normally deal in SEA heroin, have been sending couriers to Pakistan to buy the cheaper Afghanistan-produced SWA heroin. Heroin in Pakistan is about half the price of SEA heroin in Bangkok where the West Africans pay between $13,000 and $16,000 for a kilogram.

The most recent sizeable seizure of SWA heroin occurred in New York City in September 200l when officers of the city police department confiscated approximately 50 kilograms of the substance. According to the Federal-wide Drug Seizure System, this was one of the largest seizures of powdered heroin in the past five years.

Purity

On the street, heroin purity and price often reflect the drug's availability. High purities and low prices, for example, indicate that heroin supplies are readily available. DEA's Domestic Monitor Program (DMP), a retail heroin purchase program, tracks urban street-level heroin purity and price. The most recent data available show that, in 2000, the nationwide average purity for retail heroin from all sources was 36.8 percent. This number is significantly higher than the average of 7 percent reported two decades ago and higher than the 26 percent recorded in 1991. The significant rise in average purity corresponds to the increased availability of high-purity SA heroin, particularly in the northeastern United States.

Moreover, the DMP indicated that the retail purity of SA heroin was the highest for any source, averaging 48.1 percent in 2000. SWA heroin followed with a 34.6 percent average and Mexican heroin averaged 20.8 percent. Heroin purity at the street level generally remained highest in the northeastern United States, where most of the nation's user population lives. In 2000, Philadelphia recorded the DMP's highest heroin purity average of 74.0 percent. Over the last several years, Philadelphia has ranked consistently at or near the top in DMP retail heroin purity levels. In addition, New York City continues to be one of the major importation and distribution centers for SA and SEA heroin.

Prices

Nationwide, in 2000, SA heroin ranged from $50,000 to $200,000 per kilogram. SEA and SWA heroin ranged in price from $40,000 to $190,000 per kilogram. Wholesale-level prices for Mexican heroin were the lowest of any type, ranging from $13,200 to $175,000 per kilogram. The wide range in kilogram prices reflects variables such as buyer/seller relationships, quantities purchased, purchase frequencies, purity, and transportation costs.

Seizures

FDSS statistics indicate that U.S. federal law enforcement authorities seized 2,506 kilograms of heroin in 2001, compared to 1,673 kilograms in 2000.