I was surprised, as I suspect many were, by I Heart’s and KHTS’ report this morning on what happened at last night’s City Council meeting.
To recap: the meeting was held in memory of a young man named Trae Daniel Allen, who died of a heroin overdose. Then Allen’s mom spoke to the City Council saying that Mexican black tar heroin is available in Santa Clarita and she says two other people have died of overdoses recently. What’s more, she says she’s tried to work with the Sheriff’ station on this problem, to no avail.
Her comments lead Bob Kellar to scold the new Sheriff’s Station Captain Paul Becker saying, “This is unacceptable,” according to I Heart. Captain Becker is to report back on the matter in two weeks.
What is black tar heroin? Is it available in the SCV? Is this really a problem in Santa Clarita? Have there been three deaths in recent months due to heroin overdose?
The LA Times did a three-part story about the drug and its spread in the US back in February.
The first thing you need to know is that the drug is cheaper and more potent than pure Colombian white powder heroin. And it’s not produced or sold by big drug cartels, rather it is distributed and sold by small “entrepreneurial” bands of drug dealers in markets outside of big cities:
Farm boys from a tiny county that once depended on sugar cane have perfected an ingenious business model for selling a semi-processed form of Mexican heroin known as black tar.
Using convenient delivery by car and aggressive marketing, they have moved into cities and small towns across the United States, often creating demand for heroin where there was little or none. In many of those places, authorities report increases in overdoses and deaths.
Users need not venture into dangerous neighborhoods for their fix. Instead, they phone in their orders and drivers take the drug to them. Crew bosses sometimes call users after a delivery to check on the quality of service. They encourage users to bring in new customers, rewarding them with free heroin if they do.
One convicted dealer told the Times that black tar dealers look for markets that are “clean” so that they “can make it grow.” And since the whole model is decentralized and competitive, the Times says black tar heroin is cheap and prices often fall when new competition comes into play.
The Times also says that the dealers are picky about their clientele: they “generally do not sell to African Americans or Latinos. Instead they have focused on middle- and working-class whites, believing them to be a safer and more profitable clientele.” Indeed, in some parts of the country, the drug is being sold as a cheaper alternative to Percocet and Oxycontin and other prescription pain killers.
So if black tar heroin is a problem in the SCV, why are we only hearing about it now?
Well, there have been stories mentioning “heroin” in recent months. When Deputies and social workers busted into a Canyon Country drug house this month, they found heroin. And last year, Deputies arrested two young men in Stevenson Ranch “on suspicion of possession of heroin for sale and armed robbery.” A January article in the magazine “The Nation” mentioned Santa Clarita as an “exurb on the edge of the Antelope Valley with a growing heroin and meth problem” but I tend not to give too much credence to national magazines reporting on local issues.
As I Heart asked, what is truly the scope of the problem in Santa Clarita? If there have really been three overdose deaths here in town, then it’s safe to say this is a bigger problem than many of us perceived it to be.
I hope Captain Becker will shed more light on this in a couple of weeks.
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