Is the heroin epidemic headed to Columbus?
With a heroin epidemic spreading rapidly across the nation, the Chattahoochee Valley should prepare for what is already becoming a serious problem throughout Georgia, a state drug prevention expert said Tuesday.
Jim Langford, executive director of the Georgia Prevention Project, said Atlanta replaced Miami as the distribution center for drugs over the past 10 years, starting with the trafficking of methamphetamine. Mexican drug cartels have now expanded the trade to include heroin, a replacement drug for addicts who can no longer afford prescription pills, or want a better high.
“The drugs come into Atlanta and get dispersed all up and down the east coast from there, like cocaine got dispersed from Miami in the 1970s and ’80s,” Langford said. “The reason was drugs were coming into Miami from Colombia and Venezuela and some of those South American countries, but the meth is coming from Mexico and the heroin is coming from Mexico. So when it comes from Mexico, it’s coming by land, by the expressways, instead of by boat or airplane.”
What does that mean for the Chattahoochee Valley? Langford said it’s not only the area’s proximity to Atlanta, but also its closeness to Interstate 85 that makes it vulnerable.
“I-85 and I-20 are major distribution routes for the drugs coming from Mexico,” he said. “So it’s very easy for someone coming from Mexico to drop off a load in LaGrange or Columbus and have that drug distributed into smaller communities from outside of Columbus; or drugs can come straight into Atlanta and then get distributed back out to Columbus, again, very easily coming down the expressway.”
Langford, who is based in Atlanta, said the Georgia Prevention Project has been spreading awareness about the heroin epidemic through educational resources provided to school districts and colleges throughout the state.
Langford is scheduled to speak at the Columbus Rotary on May 25, and is trying to get his program into the Muscogee County School District and Columbus State University.
Alva James-Johnson: 706-571-8521, @amjreporter
DRUG PROBLEM IN GEORGIA
Here are some numbers that show the impact that heroin and prescription drugs are having across the state:
- In 2014, deaths from drug overdoses outnumbered car crash fatalities, 1,274 to 1,219.
- Georgia overdose deaths have been rising steadily since 1999, jumping from about 200 to over 1,000 by 2014.
- Heroin-only deaths have jumped significantly since 2007, accounting for nearly 600 of the opiate deaths by 2014. About 500 deaths were related to opiate pain relievers and; 800 deaths were attributed to the use of both heroin and opiate pain medications, or the causes of death were unknown.
Sources: Georgia Prevention Project and Georgia Department of Public Health
This story was originally published May 10, 2016 at 6:09 PM with the headline "Is the heroin epidemic headed to Columbus?."