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Ironically, the heroin surge also reflects a new health consciousness on the part of drug abusers. Youthful offenders, scared off by the devastation of crack, are dabbling in heroin instead, while chronic crack addicts are changing over to heroin because of its mellower high and cheaper cost. Among both groups, fear of HIV transmission has made snorting, rather than injection, the preferred method of ingestion. "The needle is out, man," says Stephan ("Boobie") Gaston, 40, of East Harlem, a 26-year abuser. "All they're doing is sniffing." Even so, the risks remain high. Heroin-related incidents jumped from 10,300 during a three-month period in 1991 to 13,400 during a comparable period in 1992, according to a Federal Drug Abuse Warning Network survey of hospital emergency rooms. Heroin-treatment admissions have also increased over the past year.
The turn toward heroin is coupled with a sharp recognition among youthful abusers of the dangers of crack. Anthony M., 13, who is detoxifying from a marijuana habit at the Daytop Village Bronx Outreach Center in New York City, estimates that 20 or so of his 200 classmates use heroin or other drugs, but among them, only one goes in for crack. "That kid wanted others to do it too," he says, "but the other kids were like, 'Nah,' because some of the kids, their parents had died because of crack."
Other hard-learned lessons seem not to affect young people today. LSD use among high school seniors reached its highest level last year since 1983, according to an annual study by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. In the rave clubs of Los Angeles, $2 to $5 buys a teenager a 10-to-12-hour LSD high. "LSD may be a prime example of generational forgetting," says Lloyd Johnston, principal investigator for the study. "Today's youngsters don't hear what an earlier generation heard -- that LSD may cause bad trips, flashbacks, schizophrenia, brain damage, chromosomal damage and so on."
Marijuana, usually the first illegal drug sampled by eventual hard-core abusers, is also back in vogue. Of the 11.4 million Americans who admitted to using drugs within a month of the 1992 Household Survey, 55% referred solely to pot; an additional 19% abused marijuana in combination with other drugs. "Cannabis is the drug that teaches our kids what other drugs are all about," says Charlie Stowell, the DEA's cannabis coordinator in California. He says today's marijuana is considerably more potent and expensive than the pot of the '60s because the amount of THC -- the ingredient that provides the high -- has risen from 2% or 3% to 12%.
The '90s has also ushered in some drug novelties. Since the turn of the decade, gamma hydroxy butyrate, known as GHB, has been used illegally in the body-building community to reduce fat. Recently, however, youths have begun to abuse the drug to achieve a trancelike state. In New York City kids concoct a "Max" cocktail by dissolving GHB in water, then mixing in amphetamines. A different mix resulted in several overdoses in the Atlanta area in the past few months. Manhattan's hard-core sex community has also turned on to "Special K," or Cat Valium, an anesthetic that numbs the body.