Heroin use in the Twin Cities is on the rise, and this heroin is the most potent in the nation, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It’s inexpensive and can be inhaled as well as injected. It’s never been deadlier. “It’s the purity that’s driving this huge increase in overdoses that we’re seeing in the Twin Cities,” said Carol Falkowski of the Minnesota Department of Human Services. “Even experienced users can’t judge the purity of the heroin we’re seeing here.”
That heroin — some of it nearly 60 percent pure, says the federal Drug Enforcement Administration — led to 22 fatal overdoses in the Twin Cities between January and mid-November 2009. That’s a 57 percent increase over the 14 heroin-related fatalities for all of 2008. The relatively low cost of $50 for a tenth of a gram apparently appeals to young addicts who hardly fit the traditional profile of a heroin user. In the past five years, most of the heroin confiscated in the Twin Cities has been in powder form — heroin that can be inhaled by “typical citizens,” some of them ages 17 to 26. ,