Police: Heroin arrest charges up 30 percent in one year

Heroin arrest charges in Suffolk County are up 30 percent from last year and 355 percent from 2003, the police commissioner told a county advisory panel Friday, more evidence of the drug's increasing grip.

Police Commissioner Richard Dormer agreed with the Suffolk Heroin and Opiate Epidemic Advisory Panel that prevention and treatment remain the key to curbing the heroin problem. "The Police Department cannot arrest our way out of this problem," he said.

At its second meeting, Dormer told the panel of a range of programs police have instituted, including initiating a heroin task force with 37 officers and detectives and the department's anti-drug schools program.

The top cop gave stark statistics. Heroin arrest charges totaled 270 in 2001 and 258 in 2003, but by 2009 had risen to 1,172 charges. The first seven months of this year has brought 836 charges on heroin, up 30 percent over the first seven months of last year. One person can be arrested on multiple charges.

The panel, formed by legislative law in May, is comprised of drug treatment professionals, educators and medical professionals. Its goal is to find solutions to the heroin problem, and recommend them to the legislature.

Panel member Dr. Patrick O'Shaughnessy, emergency room director at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center, suggested the panel reach out to primary-care doctors who can talk to parents and their minor patients about drug use as part of well-care checkups. Discussion on identifying effective drug-resistant programs for schools, and spreading the word to parents was also discussed.

The heroin epidemic is hitting hard in the teen and young adult community, experts agree. Records from the Suffolk medical examiner's office show overdose deaths for those younger than 26 rose from 188 in 2005 to 225 in 2009, Legis. Lynne Nowick (R-St. James) noted last month.

Just last month, a man and woman in their early 20s, William Earle II and Emily Weidemann, died of heroin overdoses within hours of leaving a rehab facility.

Some experts believe use of alcohol at a young age can lead to hard drug use later. Conversation at Friday's meeting turned to the county's social host law after Dormer gave the number of those arrests as a comparison. He said there have been about nine arrests a year under the law in which police can issue violations to homeowners in whose houses underage drinking has occurred.

Jeffrey Reynolds, chairman of the committee and executive director of Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, questioned why the number of violations were so low. Dormer responded that the Fourth Amendment did not permit police to go into a home unless they're invited in, except under certain circumstances, such as when someone may be hurt. "It's not an easy law to enforce," he said.