Heroin use on the rise in rural America

A crackdown of prescription pills has led to an increase in heroin use, "especially in rural areas, amid ample supply and a shift away from costlier prescription narcotics that are becoming tougher to acquire," Zusha Elinson and Arian Campos-Flores report for The Wall Street Journal. "Small-town police forces strain to handle the additional narcotics investigations and drug-related crimes such as burglaries. Some afflicted areas are far from hospital emergency rooms, raising the risk that an overdose will be deadly." (Journal photo by Mike Kane: A heroin user shoots up in Washington)

Rep. John Nygren (R-Wis.) told the Journal that some employers in the 11,000-population town of Marintette "are having difficulty filling positions because so many applicants are testing positive for heroin," the Journal reports. "The problem prompted the local chamber of commerce in April to begin assembling a consortium of community organizations to address the problem. Meanwhile, a sharp rise in heroin-related crime has fed a 31 percent increase in the inmate population at the 164-bed local jail over the past two years. The town has no residential treatment centers for addicts.

Bill Mark, director of the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force, told the Journal, some counties "are experiencing heroin literally for the first time." He said last year, 28 of the state's 120 counties logged their first heroin arrests since he started tracking such data in 2008.

Norman Redberg, executive director of Kittitas County Alcohol Drug Dependency Service in the 18,000-population town of Ellenburg, Wash., said he evaluated 27 heroin in the first six months of the year, compared with three in 2008.

W.H. Holbrook, chief of police In Huntington, W.Va., told the Journal that heroin became the top drug problem in the city of around 50,000 about six months ago. "Last month, a local task force nabbed 3.7 pounds of the drug, one of the largest seizures ever in the region. And police are contending with a steady increase in property crimes like larceny, driven by addicts trying to feed their habit." (Read more) (Graphic by the Wall Street Journal)