Feb. 16, 2010
 
HEROIN ROAD: Huntington’s Black Tar, Pain Pill Epidemic Tops L.A. Times Mexican Drug Cartel Series
 
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
 
Los Angeles, CA (HNN) – Remember 2007 when the Huntington Police and Emergency Medical Technicians confronted an “epidemic” of heroin use and an overdose rate that spiraled over the summer?
 
The community was caught by surprise. Word spread that heroin use had spread and that , perhaps, one or more shipments had arrived that were either purer than normal or contained tainted ingredients.
 
Adam Johnson, 22, a Marshall University student , was one of the victims of the black tar heroin influx. His dad, Teddy Johnson, had not heard from his son in three days and found the history major and WMUL-FM disc jockey, dead.
 
Twelve overdoses occurred in Huntington during that fall and winter. Police Chief Skip Holbrook told L.A. Times Reporter Quinones, “We didn’t even consider heroin an issue.”
 
But, the trail begins in Xalisco (the Mexican Pacific Coast state of Nayarit) where immigrants drive black tar heroin into the U.S. marketing pain medications. They have networked with dealers eastward into Columbus, Ohio, and then to rural parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania, as well as Nashville, Myrtle Beach, Charlotte and Pittsburgh. University towns are fertile markets.
 
“They were innovative and tireless. Rather than sell from houses, where they would be sitting ducks for narcotics agents, they operated like a pizza delivery service. Users called a phone number. A dispatcher relayed the order to a driver, who took the heroin to a customer,” the Times article states.
 
The semi-processed heroin markets well in places where pain-pill addicts switch from OxyContin to the cheaper and more powerful Black Tar. They end up dead.
 
According to an in depth article on Mexico’s drug wars appearing in the Los Angeles Times, Xalisco’s Sanchez family turned Nashville into a “distribution hub,” then in 2006 dispatched a young driver named “Hector” to conquer Indianapolis.
 
Headlined as “a lethal business model targeting Middle America,” these sugar cane farmers use savvy marketing and low prices to push black tar heroin in the U.S. Sam Quinones stated that the Mexican product is cheaper and more potent than Columbian heroin. In fact, rather than have customers tread into seamy neighborhoods, the drug is brought to them. The user may even receive a courtesy call asking about qualify of delivery service.
 
The Times article quoted a narcotics investigator in Charlotte stating that this retail strategy “changed the user and methods of use. It’s almost like Wal Mart: We’re going to keep our prices cheap and grow from there.”
 
 
PART ONE: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-blacktar14-2010feb14,0,5863703.story?page=1&track=rss
 
PART TWO: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-blacktar15-2010feb15,0,6650137.story
 
PART THREE: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-blacktar16-2010feb16,0,7436571.story