Relieving New York’s Intense Struggle with Drug and Alcohol Addiction
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New York is huge in every way. It’s a densely populated city, a major financial center of the world. It has a mixed population of every nationality. Because it’s such a vital business center, it has massive and busy channels of transportation and communication to every corner of the globe. All these qualities have long made it an irresistible target for drug trafficking organizations.
Several decades ago, it was traffickers bringing in heroin from Laos, Thailand or Burma who ruined New York lives. Later, Turkish heroin made its way into New York by way of France, inspiring the 1970s movie the French Connection.
While Mexican drug cartels maintain cells in hundreds of American cities, the channels in and out of New York have long been under the control of Dominicans and Colombians. Jamaicans, Nigerians, Salvadorans and other ethnic groups also contributed to the trafficking of drugs in the city and surrounding areas. But in recent years, these Mexican drug trafficking organizations have begun to establish stronger operations in the area.
The upshot of all those different groups working hard to get a piece of the pie is that there is no shortage of drug supplies in the region. The biggest threat has been heroin for many years, followed by prescription drugs, cocaine, and marijuana.
On the surface, New York is arguably America’s most exciting city. Theatre, music, literary events, and personalities, restaurants, fashion, big business – New York has it all. Eighteen million people call this metropolitan area home. They live, work, pursue their entertainments and raise their families in the boroughs of New York or neighboring New Jersey.
Under the surface, the intricate web of drug trafficking, use, and addiction presents a different picture. A market of eighteen million potential customers is hard to pass up. And so there is a convergence of different drug trafficking organizations from every ethnic background that transport drugs into or through New York or manage the street-level distribution network.
This metropolitan area has long been a home to immigrants from every corner of the globe. Now, drug traffickers from any country can blend in easily, making detection difficult. Trafficking organizations include ones that originate in or are primarily run by individuals from the following countries/regions:
- Afghanistan
- Pakistan
- Nigeria
- Puerto Rico
- Columbia
- Mexico
- Russia
- Dominican Republic
- Jamaica
- Israel
- Vietnam
- China
- Canada (primarily Asian immigrants from Canada)
- Italy (Italian Organized Crime)
Once these groups bring the drugs into the region, most of the street-level distribution is taken care of by street gangs, such as the Bloods, Crips, Dominicans Don’t Play, Latin Kings, Mara Salvatrucha and Netas, among others.
Intricate Infrastructure Supports Trafficking
Regions rich in transportation and business infrastructure are appealing to traffickers because their goods are easy to conceal in the volume. The port of New York/New Jersey is the biggest container port on the East Coast. In 2007, $166 billion in cargo moved through this port. Drug traffickers continue to find ingenious ways to hide their goods: in toys, inside hollowed-out beads, sports equipment or furniture, soaked into clothing, or, as in a recent case of heroin smuggling, impregnated into plastic goods. The heroin must be extracted from the plastic through a chemical process before it can be distributed.
International airports in New York, Buffalo, and Albany enable passengers who have ingested as much as 23 ounces of heroin encased in condoms or balloons to come and go with the other international traffic. In New York, a new direct flight from Nigeria to JFK International Airport creates the possibility of increased trafficking of heroin from that country. Package delivery services and the U.S. Postal Service are also utilized. Traffickers use these services in part because they can track their packages online. When a package is delayed at any point, the traffickers may suspect law enforcement intervention and can abandon or refuse the package of drugs.
The most extensive subway system in the world enables dealers to get around town quickly. The criss-cross of Interstates (81, 84, 86, 87, 88, 90 and 495) enable drugs to be moved down from the Canadian border or to cross the state on their way from the Southwest border. However, here too, traffickers adapt to the pressure applied by law enforcement. Many are using secondary or back roads to move their drugs to avoid the greater surveillance that exists on the Interstates.
Finally, the abundance of financial institutions makes it possible to get the proceeds out of the country quickly.
Drug Abuse in New York
Types of Drugs Being Trafficked Consistent with Rest of Nation
The same as other regions of the country, the New York area sees trafficking in heroin, cocaine, marijuana, club drugs such as Ecstasy (MDMA), methamphetamine and prescription drugs. But the profile of use is a little different in these East Coast states. Higher levels of heroin abuse and addiction exist in this area than much of the rest of the country. Heroin use is increasing in upstate New York, with more young rural users getting involved with the drug. There are more treatment admissions for heroin addiction than any other drug.
Methamphetamine is a smaller problem in this area than in much of the rest of the United States but has been growing in the last couple of years.
As in much of the U.S., cocaine is a popular drug of abuse. In low-income urban areas around the state, much of it is converted into crack cocaine. Marijuana, either Mexican marijuana brought up from the Southwest border or potent hydroponic marijuana smuggled in from Canada, is widely used.
Also consistent with other parts of the country is the increase in the number of indoor marijuana grows being found on Long Island and in Queens. Primarily, it’s Italian Organized Crime groups that buy and gut houses to set up these hydroponic growing systems.
Prescription drug abuse has been increasing among teens and young adults who may think that its legitimate manufacture makes it safer to abuse, and ketamine, the dissociative veterinary anesthetic, is also seeing more use in some communities.
The Grim Results of This High Availability of Drugs in New York
Based on national figures for dependence and addiction, more than a million people in the metropolitan area are dependent or addicted to drugs or alcohol. In 2006, more than 400,000 people in New York State alone reported that they needed treatment for drug addiction or dependence but did not get it. More than a quarter of a million did enter treatment, with alcohol addiction leading the numbers every year.
As long as there are addicted people in the area, as long as there is a demand for drugs, and as long as there are ruthless entrepreneurs who don’t care about the human wreckage they create, there will be drugs trafficked and distributed. While law enforcement does its best to interdict drug shipments, this effort will always be futile unless real recovery is available to those who have become addicted, and unless effective drug education is provided for young people before they have a chance to succumb to the imagined allure of drug use.
Effective drug treatment programs, drug rehabilitation facilities and drug education such as that offered by Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers around the country are part of the solution. When former drug users are restored to an interest in life and a sense of personal integrity, everyone wins the war on drugs. When a child realizes that life is lived better without a needle, a crack pipe or a joint, the future of our entire country is a little brighter.
A Vast Wealth of Pharmaceutical Products
The distribution of pharmaceutical products is a whole other layer of drug distribution in New York. Painkillers are popular drugs of abuse, leading to hundreds of pharmacy robberies and burglaries. The map below shows the rate at which popular painkillers are prescribed for New Yorkers. The dark red areas, for example, show that per 100,000 residents, 60,000 or more prescriptions were filled for oxycodone and hydrocodone.
With pills, doctors manage the drug trafficking, overprescribing pills like Adderall and Xanax as well as painkillers. In one case, a doctor was reported to have prescribed so many unneeded medications that 920,000 pills of Xanax made their way to the illicit market.
With prescription drugs, too, the idea of making fortunes with illicit prescribing is just too alluring for some people. And so they agree to prescribe to those who are addicted and others who will supply drug dealers. There must be a solution for those who get caught in this trap.
Narconon and a Fifty-Year History
Narconon is a non-profit organization with a fifty-year history of offering drug-free rehabilitation services. Starting in the 1960s with one center in Los Angeles, this organization has grown into a network that reaches around the world. Centers are located in Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, Nepal, Italy, Colombia and several other countries as well as several locations in the U.S.
How can the Narconon program offer drug-free recovery, even for the withdrawal phase? First, medical detox may be necessary, if so, this is done in a separate facility to provide the individual with a medically supervised wean down to safely stop taking the substance. After this, with the experienced use of nutritional supplements to ease withdrawal symptoms and the use of unique techniques called assists to calm the mind and body’s reaction to this adjustment. Some people have described this process and the most tolerable withdrawal they have ever experienced.
Once withdrawal is complete, a thorough sauna-based detoxification takes the idea of breaking free from the effects of drugs a step further. Combining time in the sauna with a very exact regimen of nutritional supplements and moderate daily exercise, each person’s body is supported through a deep detoxification of old, lodged drug residues. Years of drug or alcohol abuse leave behind residues trapped in the cells that can affect one’s outlook and make one’s thinking cloudy and slow.
The New Life Detoxification reverses this cloudy, slow thinking as these residues are washed away as the person sweats in the sauna. Many people completing this step talk about how their outlooks become so much brighter. Some people even say their physical cravings for drugs are finally under control.
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Proofing a Person from Relapse
What needs to happen now is that a person must be strengthened against relapse. This means that they must recover from the trauma of the past and must regain specific life skills that were destroyed by addiction.
On the objectives, each person learns how to return their attention to the present. Every person who spends time addicted will find his memory of the past to be a hindrance to the enjoyment of the present. There’s pain, injuries, losses, lies, terrors, and sickness in the past. Day by day as each person completes the steps of the objectives, these exercises help him leave the past in the past and start living in the present.
From there, life skills training teaches each person:
- How to choose the right friends and associates who will protect their sobriety
- How to recover one’s own personal integrity and self-esteem (to their great relief)
- How to overcome obstacles and cope with setbacks that might send one back to drug use to escape.
Greatly strengthened in life, a person is far less likely to resort to drug abuse once he goes home.
New York Overdose Deaths Keep Climbing
Much has been reported about the increase in drug overdose deaths in New York. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researched the incidence of death resulting from heroin or painkillers in 2005 and compared that rate to 2014, finding an increase of 2000%.
When the incredibly powerful drug fentanyl arrived in New York City, the number of overdose deaths topped 1,000 for the first time. Fentanyl has been found added to heroin supplies and pressed into counterfeit pills. It’s also being found mixed into cocaine supplies and some people go looking for a supplier who will sell them straight fentanyl.
Despite these severe problems with drugs, alcohol is the biggest factor in sending people to drug rehabs in New York State. But the proportion headed to rehab for alcohol keeps dwindling as heroin admissions climb as you can see in the following graph.
One thing is certain: Any New Yorker troubled with drug or alcohol abuse needs access to effective drug rehabilitation to enable him (or her) to create a new, sustainable, productive and enjoyable life.
For New Yorkers, the Narconon drug rehab center in Florida might be a suitable choice. There are also centers in Louisiana, Oklahoma, California, and Colorado. Whichever center is chosen, the program is the same. Each person works their way through a series of manuals that make the program consistent wherever it is delivered. Videos also ease the process of learning the skills needed to retain sobriety once the person returns home.
If you care about someone who is addicted or if you need help yourself, contact Narconon International today to learn how soon recovery can start at a drug-free Narconon rehabilitation center.
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