Small town big on heroin troubles
Gordon Fraser, Eagle-Tribune (Massachusetts)
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She goes to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting twice each day, gets up every morning by 7, and thinks her life is looking better - at least, better than it's been in a long time.
"My life the last year and a half? It sucks," she said with a rueful laugh.
Butruccio, 48, is a recovering heroin addict. Her former boyfriend, Theodore Gagalis, faces four felony drug charges in connection with an undercover sting by Kingston police.
Police say Gagalis, who was dating Butruccio when he was arrested, planned to sell heroin and other drugs.
Now, Butruccio has something to tell the people of Kingston.
"They need to be aware that, first of all, there's a heroin epidemic in this community," said Butruccio, who lives in a rented room in town.
It's something officials and activists have been saying for years - not just about Kingston, but about all of Southern New Hampshire.
"For the last 12 years, it's been heroin and cocaine," Kingston police Chief Donald Briggs said.
"New England, historically, has had a large amount of heroin," said Anthony Pettigrew, spokesman for the Boston bureau of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
"I would say there's been a serious problem with heroin and morphine-based drugs for the past few years," said Lt. Robert Quinn of New Hampshire State Police Troop A.
In fact, a report by the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies found that in 2003, 3 percent of teenagers in the state had tried heroin. Last year, six people died from heroin overdoses in the Granite State, and more than 50 died in overdoses from other opiates, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.
But getting the message across to the public has been difficult, according to many officials. Actually doing something to solve the problem has been tougher still, activists say.
"I think one of the big problems is educating individuals, families, as to the extent of the problem," said Dick Gerrish, who more than 15 years ago started Drugs Are Dangerous Inc., a community group that combats drug use among teens.
To Butruccio, who has two grown children, the failure of the community to prevent drug abuse has been tragic, as tragic as her own struggles with substance abuse.
Burtruccio's story
A slight, blonde woman of maybe 5 feet tall and 100 pounds, Butruccio smoked Kools as she perched on the end of her couch several weeks ago.
She talked fast and sometimes fought tears as she explained what got her into heroin.
Butruccio moved to Kingston about five years ago, hoping to get away from her life in Haverhill, Mass. Back then, she was addicted to cocaine.
"When I moved to New Hampshire, it's like nobody's heard of coke before. It's all opiates, OxyContin," she said.
That's what she got into. She has had prescriptions for pain medications, like OxyContin, since a 1994 car accident left her neck broken in two places. Her boyfriend at the time had been driving drunk, she said.
"What relationships, huh?" she said.
The first person she met in Kingston - she wouldn't give his name - showed her how to turn her OxyContin into a recreational drug by crushing and snorting it.
Pettigrew, of the DEA, said OxyContin and other prescriptions often lead to heroin use.
"Instead of buying a $40 pill, you're going to buy a $10 bag of heroin," Pettigrew said.
The high is similar, with a lower price tag, he said. And changes in heroin's purity over the years have meant people don't have to "shoot up" with a needle. Instead, drug users can snort or smoke the brownish powder.
"At one time, there would be a stigma," Pettigrew said.
The image of a junkie with a needle in his arm is now gone, and with it the stigma, he said. But the addiction and danger remain.
That's what happened to Butruccio. Prescription drugs eventually led to heroin. One night while she was driving home with a friend, the two pulled into a parking lot and blew lines.
"They tell you that it'll relax you, Robin, it'll take your pain away," she said. "It really does."
For all the talk of how dangerous drugs are, Butruccio said her first introduction to heroin about a year and a half ago was enjoyable.
That's what made it so dangerous for her.
"It's fun. You sit there and you get high and you enjoy it," she said.
Eventually, she said, "In order for ... me to function on a daily basis, (I) had to be high."
Plentiful supply, shortage of treatment
And the woman who has been in and out of rehab programs for some 20 years, battling addictions to other drugs, soon discovered how addictive the opiate can be.
"The worst pain in the world is coming off heroin," she said. "Every bone, every muscle in your body hurts."
She only stopped, she said, when her access to the drug diminished after Gagalis was arrested. But that doesn't mean she couldn't still find it, she said.
Heroin is available throughout town, and very easily available across the Massachusetts' border, Butruccio said.
Kingston and nearby towns have seen a number of heroin-related arrests and deaths in the past year.
Caitlyn Brady, 18, of Kingston died March 15 of a heroin overdose. Dante Silva, 21, of Newton, who authorities say was her boyfriend, is charged with providing her the drug that killed her.
Since then, Kingston police have arrested a litany of alleged drug dealers, including Gagalis.
Briggs, the Kingston chief for about 12 years, said he typically assigns three officers to a program of undercover drug purchasing operations at any given time.
It isn't enough, he said.
"I would say that it's not only a law enforcement issue, but a social issue, as well," he said. "You need to have a comprehensive treatment program for these people that you arrest."
That is exactly what Butruccio wants to see happen.
"It needs to be addressed," she said of the heroin problem. "It's the worst, dirtiest drug in the world."
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