Chicago and its suburban counties are suffering the worst heroin problem in America, according to a new study.
Nearly 24,000 people in the area were admitted to hospitals in 2008 due to heroin, more than any of the 12 other major cities in the study.
The study, released Monday by the Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy at Roosevelt University, also showed that overdose deaths from heroin were rising quickly in the suburbs, and that more inmates in Cook County Jail have been testing positive for the drug.
Dan Bigg of the Chicago Recovery Alliance, a needle-exchange program, told the Chicago Tribune that the demographics of heroin use are changing.
"It used to be that most heroin users were African-American males from the Vietnam era," Bigg said. "In the last 20 years, we've seen a shift to a much greater group, starting with the 18 to 24, suburban, Caucasian population."
Indeed, as the Chicago Sun-Times reports, Cook County -- where most heroin users are middle-aged and black -- has seen a 16 percent decrease in heroin deaths since 2000. But that is offset by the more than doubled death rate from heroin in suburban McHenry and Lake Counties.
The Sun-Times spoke with the family of one white suburban teen who fell victim to the rising tide of heroin use:
John Roberts, a retired Chicago Police officer whose 19-year-old son Billy died of a heroin overdose last year, said many parents aren't aware of how available heroin is to their children.
"I know I wasn't," said Roberts, who lives in Homer Glen. "Their kids can try heroin for $10, and if they're lucky, they never try it again."
But Billy Roberts did try heroin again, and he got hooked. After showing some progress in treatment, Billy died of an overdose in September.
"He found an inexpensive drug, and he thought he could control it. And you can't," John Roberts said.
The study cites Chicago's position as a transportation hub, and the increased purity of product coming from South America and Mexico, as reasons for the rise in medical problems. Doctors also suggested that the uptick in hospitalizations may have come in part from users seeking replacement drugs like naloxone and buprenorphine.
But with the state government slashing spending in a massive budget shortfall, many treatment programs are failing. And this will lead more and more users to the hospital, according to Kathleen Kane-Willis, co-author of the study.
"If there's availability (of treatment), they don't go to the ER and they don't go to jail," she told the Tribune. Otherwise, the trend will continue to get worse.