Heroin use by Somerville residents has spiked over the past several years due to the drug's low price and easy availability, according to Gail Enman, the executive director of the Cambridge and Somerville Program for Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation (CASPAR).
Of Somerville residents who are admitted to the CASPAR shelter for substance-abuse treatment, 42 percent say that their primary drug is heroin. The statewide average is lower, at 39 percent, and the average in neighboring Cambridge is 32 percent.
"You wonder what the variable is that distinguishes the two communities, and it's hard to say," Enman said. "It may be the source [or] it might be coming into the borders of the community with greater ease. ... People just have their connections."
Society's stereotype of heroin as "the poor man's drug" no longer holds true today, Enman said. She explained that while CASPAR primarily serves impoverished addicts, the majority of heroin users are employed, educated white men between the ages of 21 and 39.
"The academic achievement of these folks is pretty significant," she said. "They're not a bunch of high school dropouts. The percentage of homeless people who are heroin addicts is lower than one might think. So it's largely people who are carrying on with their lives in one way or another."
To mitigate the effects of heroin abuse, CASPAR oversees a clean-needle exchange program in Cambridge that allows addicts to trade in their dirty needles for clean ones.
There are a few such programs in the state, and the idea behind them is often controversial.
Proponents of exchange programs argue that providing addicts with clean needles prevents the spread of AIDS and other diseases among people who are going to be injecting drugs anyway.
"I really support the needle exchange," said Jeanne Haley, an alcohol and drug treatment specialist at Tufts. "We are trying to decrease risk as much as we can."
While some oppose such programs because they feel that giving needles to heroin users condones drug abuse, Haley said that there clinic is not endorsing heroin use.
"[The exchanges] don't just give people needles. It's a trade," she said. "You can't walk in and say, 'I want needles, give me needles.' You have to come in with needles and trade them for clean ones."
During her four years at Tufts, Haley has worked with only two student heroin users. She said that the prescription painkiller OxyContin, which many consider to be a "gateway drug" to heroin, is more common on the Hill.
"OxyContin is a pill that many people have access to," Haley said. "On the Tufts campus, it is easier to access narcotic pills because they seem less illegal. You can carry them in your purse."
But many users later turn to heroin because it is stronger and can be ingested more quickly and in higher quantities.
"There is only so much OxyContin you can take," she said. "Ultimately, if you want more, you have to move on to heroin."
This trend appears to hold true in the larger Somerville community, although at an exaggerated pace.
An interview conducted among youths at CASPAR's needle exchange facility showed that the average age of Vicodin users is 16, according to Somerville Health Department Director Noreen Burke.
The subjects moved on to OxyContin and Percocet by 17 and had tried heroin by 18.
Paul Upton, the public information officer for the Somerville Police Department, said that the city is attempting to deal with this by nipping the problem at the bud. He said that his department has resource officers at Somerville's elementary and high schools who conduct counseling and education programs.
"We also have an adopt-a-school program where patrol officers volunteer to work with a particular school for a multitude of matters including drug education," he said in an e-mail to the Daily.
