Heroin 'The Most Prominent Drug' in the Lehigh Valley

Google "heroin on the rise" and you'll find recent news stories from Maine to Washington state about an increase in heroin cases.

Add to that list the Lehigh Valley, where investigators say cheap heroin has returned to the top of the drug heap.

"Daily arrests...Almost daily, let’s put it that way," said Easton Police Inspector Sal Crisafulli, who works with the Northampton County Drug Task Force. "I think heroin’s becoming more prominent. It’s the most prominent drug in the area."

Drugs have cycles, investigators say. 

"There was a time when cocaine was the most readily available," said Det. Joseph Stauffer with the Lehigh County Drug Task Force.

But now, heroin has gotten less expensive and easier to find. 

"I don't want to use the word 'popular,' but heroin is readily available in the Lehigh Valley. It’s probably a more usable drug right now than meth is," Stauffer said.

It's not that the Lehigh Valley hasn't seen meth cases. Earlier this year, police say a meth lab exploded in Bethlehem. And Easton police charged a group of men in January with running a meth lab in Wilson.

But Crisafulli and Stauffer say that the nature of the local meth trade—home grown operations vs. networks with ties to New York and New Jersey—mean that police deal with heroin more often than meth.

It doesn't help that police need to battle the law of supply and demand. In the late 1990s, heroin users would pay $20 a bag. Now, the cost has been cut in half, Crisafulli said.

Those daily arrests he referred to are for simple possession. More serious arrests—targeting dealers—happen on a bi-weekly basis, he said. Last year, Easton police made more than two dozen drug raids targeting such dealers. 

And city officials have tied much of Easton's gun violence to the drug trade, although it's not clear what actual drugs were involved.

This isn't an issue confined to just cities. Last month, police in Nazareth arrested a couple who had allegedly brought their two-year-old child with them to purchase heroin. Earlier in the year, police in South Whitehall found a bag of heroin at the township's Target.

Last fall, Northampton County Drug and Alcohol administrator Mary Carr told WFMZ her office had seen a 10 percent increase in requests for services from heroin addicts.

The county's website lists several outpatient treatment options, including:

• MidAtlantic Rehabilitation Services, Bethlehem, 484-866-6165 
• N.E.T. NorthEast Treatment Centers, Bethlehem, 610-868-0435 
• N.E.T. NorthEast Treatment Centers, Easton 610-253-6760 
• New Directions Treatment Services, Bethlehem, 610-758-8011

There's also the Bethlehem Recovery Center and the Easton Recovery Center.

The Lehigh Valley Intake website also provides a wealth of treatment options for people from both counties.