Heroin in Dallas – Fort Worth: Heroin is Popular So Expect More Felony Heroin Arrests

Heroin is here to stay in North Texas and the Dallas – Fort Worth Metroplex area: it’s something recognized by the local police and the District Attorneys’ Offices as well as criminal defense lawyers and people treating heroin abuse and heroin overdoses in local hospitals and rehab centers.

Why?  It’s a cheaper, readily accessible alternative to prescription drugs like oxycodone and fentanyl, and any social stigma for heroin use (think those old movies where people are shooting up with needles in dark and dirty locales) is long gone.  See:  Lots of Heroin Arrests Will Be Happening Here in Texas As Feds, Locals Target Growing Heroin Market.

One big factor here: as the popularity of heroin increases, heroin suppliers (just like any other savvy business enterprise) are finding ways to package and market their product in ways that their clients and customers find attractive. More and more, heroin is being sold in pill form because it’s more acceptable to the growing middle class user — and because it’s more easily identified as a substitute good for the pain pills that are getting harder and harder to find and more expensive, to boot.

Heroin products come in many forms, including pills and easy to take tablets.

Heroin Is Dangerous and Popular in Dallas

Of course, we know that heroin is dangerous. Heroin overdoses are skyrocketing across the country. In fact, FATAL heroin overdoses had jumped 300% in the past five years (since 2010).

1. Heroin Use in Dallas is Fun, Social Drug

It’s also very available for purchase in North Texas and very popular among lots of middle class and upper class folk that the general public does not associate with heroin use.

Here are a few facts from the Dallas Regional Medical Center (go to their site for more health-related heroin information):

1. In our area, the typical heroin user lives in a middle class neighborhood.
2. Many heroin users in the Dallas area are young people (children, teenagers).
3. Here, heroin is considered fun and socially acceptable – it is often used at parties and in group settings by teenagers and college-age kids.
4. Heroin may well be the first drug that the Dallas area child takes. The idea that kids use other drugs like pot and then “move up” to heroin is not true today.
5. In the Dallas area, heroin use is not only causing heroin overdoses and heroin deaths, it is causing other health problems like Hepatitis C infections or HIV.

2. Heroin Cocktails Popular in Dallas Area

Another big issue here in the Dallas area is the risk of people overdosing or dying from taking heroin products that are combined with other chemicals. This is a popular trend here, where the person takes heroin along with something else for a better high like:

• Heroin and cold medicine like TylenolPM (nicknamed “Cheese”);
• Heroin and Xanax (nicknamed “Bars“ – if it’s black tar heroin, it’s “Tar and a Bar”); or
• Heroin and cocaine (nicknamed “Dynamite” or “Goofball”).

Cheese has been a particularly popular heroin-combo here in Dallas; so much so that the Dallas Police Department has its own campaign to inform parents about the signs that their kids may be using heroin in combination with crushed up TylenolPM tablets.

From the Dallas Police site:

Cheese is HEROIN. Cheese is black tar heroin mixed with crushed Tylenol PM tablets. This drug has been identified in several DISD middle schools and high schools. Cheese represents approximately 37% of total drug usage by students. Cheese is highly addictive and very dangerous. When mixed, the drug takes the form of a tan-colored powder that is usually snorted through the nose with a tube, straw, or small ballpoint pen. The drug is packaged in small paper bindles or small zip-lock baggies.

3. Dallas Area Heroin Support Groups

Heroin use in our part of North Texas is so widespread that we’ve got several local support groups around town to help heroin users anonymously deal with life issues and concerns resulting from their use of heroin, such as:

• Heroin Anonymous Dallas: a Way Out Group

There are also dozens of rehab facilities here in Dallas for heroin users, like:

• Phoenix House
• Gateway Foundation

Heroin Arrests: Felony Heroin Busts and Felony Homicide

Heroin use among children in Dallas area middle schools and high schools is much higher than many people around here realize. Heroin use among teenagers and young adults in local junior colleges and universities is also skyrocketing and lots of folk don’t know this is happening. Finally, heroin is rising in popularity among adults in middle class suburban life — soccer moms and white collar professionals who are finding heroin pills a great alternative to the pain pills that they used to take and cannot find any longer.

Heroin is trending here, but it doesn’t mean that heroin laws are changing.

Heroin is a serious felony here in Texas, and being caught with any amount of heroin in your possession, custody, or control is a crime tied to serious jail time. If you have heroin on your person, then you’re at risk of a felony bust. If you have heroin in your purse or wallet; in your car or desk; in your backpack or locker — you’re at risk of being arrested for felony heroin crimes.

Moreover, as heroin use continues to grow here in Dallas and North Texas, there are going to be more heroin busts for heroin-related crimes. Things like heroin distribution or heroin sales where a friend shares his heroin supply with someone else, or where someone at a party brings the heroin for his friends to enjoy. Heroin distribution or heroin sales are even more serious felonies here in Texas, and face very, very long prison sentences.

Additionally, there is the risk of heroin overdoses and heroin deaths where the person who supplied the heroin to the injury victim is facing potential charges of attempted homicide or murder charges. People die from using heroin (or heroin in combo with other things). Dallas law enforcement and local prosecutors may well decide to charge those who supply the heroin as the person criminally responsible for that death.

Heroin Bust in Dallas: Criminal Lawyer Needed ASAP

If someone here in Dallas or North Texas is arrested for heroin in any heroin-related crime (possession, distribution, etc.) then it’s extremely important for them to have an experienced criminal defense attorney at their side as soon as possible to deal with these drug crime charges. This is especially true for those who are inexperienced and unaware of the inner workings of the criminal justice system here — like most of these new middle-class heroin users here.

To lots of people in our community, heroin is trendy, it’s easy to get, it’s fun, and it’s not a big deal. However, to law enforcement and local police, heroin is a dangerous drug and a serious felony arrest in the making.

In the next few years, lots of people are going to be facing serious consequences of heroin use here in our area. Criminal defense lawyers see it evolving, and the clash between felony charges and newbie drug arrests appears to be a tragic inevitability.

For more on heroin use in Dallas and North Texas, see:

1. Drug Crimes in Texas;
2. Heroin and Money Laundering in Texas – Expecting More Charges in 2015;
3. Heroin is a Business in Texas: Growing Heroin Demand Means More Heroin Busts in 2015; and
4. Heroin Dealers to Philip Seymour Hoffman Arrested on Possession; Heroin Suppliers in Texas Already Face Life Imprisonment in Heroin Overdose Death Arrests.

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Also check out Michael Lowe’s Case Results regarding drug crime defense, including helping people who have been charged with heroin-related crimes.