They head north to towns across the Seacoast. Police in Seabrook, Hampton, Epping and Portsmouth report the most heroin use, but say arrest numbers don’t accurately represent the true number of users.

While users use each other to support their habit through buying, their actual use is a solitary activity and an extremely hard culture to infiltrate, Portsmouth Detective Steve Arnold said.

"Drug investigations take a lot of effort and time; they usually are long term," Hampton Police Chief William Wrenn said. "You need to have people who are very focused on investigating those types of violations in order to really make a dent in it."

Still, the amount of heroin seized in the state and sent to the State Police Crime Lab for testing has increased dramatically, according to lab Director Tim Pifer.

The lab, which tests to confirm the drug is heroin, received 135 samples for testing in 2002 and 256 samples in 2003. It has seven drug chemists analyzing 500 to 600 total drug cases each month, which includes all types of drugs. There is a four- to five-month backlog for authorities to receive results.

Across state lines

Police are aware heroin’s main route into the state, especially the Seacoast, are major roadways such as I-95 and Route 125.

"They’re going to cross over the Mass. line into those cities, and obviously they’ve got to come back," Arcieri said, adding police patrol those roads and know what to look for.

Sometimes they don’t go far when they cross the New Hampshire state line. State police patrolling I-95 have responded to what they believe are cars broken down on the side of the road to find someone shooting heroin inside the car, said Lt. David Kelley, troop commander of Troop A in Epping.

"It seems that their habit is so consuming that many times we come upon them sitting on the side of the road shooting up," Kelley said.

While authorities have reported a number of younger people getting into heroin because it can now be snorted, many turn to shooting up, which produces a quicker high and requires less heroin.

Police and ambulance workers in the area are now seeing more evidence of heroin users shooting up than snorting.

In other recent cases, a trooper pulled over a car for speeding, only to find a driver who looked like he had the flu, sweating and shaking from apparent heroin withdrawal. Often, the person’s story about where he or she is coming from or going to has inconsistencies and the trooper receives consent to search the vehicle.

"We’re finding syringes; we’re finding bags of heroin," Kelley said.

State police routinely drive through the rest area just over the state line in Seabrook, which has also become a popular place for heroin users to stop after they head north from their buyers in Massachusetts.

In a recent case, Trooper Dan Needham came upon a car in the rest area with the windows fogged up. He shined a spotlight on the car to see if anyone was inside and saw two people moving around.

Needham asked the woman inside to step outside of the car.

"When she did, the needle, a syringe, dropped right from her lap," Kelley said.

Needham found 40 bags of heroin in the woman’s coat.

In another recent case, Trooper Anthony Caruso stopped a car with a loud muffler as it headed north on I-95. The car had a Maine license plate. The people in the car had conflicting stories.

"Their ultimate story was they’d driven all the way from (mid-)Maine to Lowell simply to go for a ride and they’d stayed in Lowell for only 20 minutes," Kelley said.

Caruso ended up doing a consent search of the vehicle and seized 100 bags of heroin.

"Later it was determined, after he interviewed them, that they had been paid by someone in Maine to pick up the drugs and drive them back to Maine," Kelley said.

Although troopers have stopped people on the side roads, including Route 1, I-95 seems to be a major corridor for those getting heroin in Maine and New Hampshire.

"They feel that if they just go over the state border and stop at a rest area, they’re outside the reach of the law in Massachusetts," Kelley said. "I give a lot of credit to the troopers that are working 95. They’re very diligent in trying to curb this drug surge."

Epping police, who patrol the area on Route 125 in their town, have seen an increase in traffic stops resulting in heroin arrests, Epping Police Lt. Michael Wallace said.

"Route 125 is one of the primary routes for trafficking heroin from Lowell, Lawrence and Haverhill north into Rochester," Wallace said. "We have made several arrests for heroin possession out on (Route) 125."

The evidence

Police in the area are seeing clues that heroin use is increasing, but say making an arrest for heroin possession is often tough. Heroin arrests usually stem from another charge, such as someone being pulled over for speeding.

Epping police have seen signs of people stopping along the way up Route 125 to ingest heroin. Last summer, police found some discarded needles and syringes behind a local gas station that were used to shoot heroin, Wallace said.

Portsmouth police are also finding evidence of needles and syringes used for heroin, Portsmouth Police Chief Magnant said. His department has two officers devoted to drug work with one funded through a grant administered through the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Hampton police are battling heroin use, primarily in inexpensive winter rental units on the beach, for the past several years, Hampton’s Chief Wrenn said. While the problem seemed to be more visible in the summer, police there are now seeing it more in the winter as well.

"With the winter rentals, we very rarely know who’s moved in and don’t even have a handle on it until something has happened," Wrenn said. "The incident that brings our attention to that person is usually the overdose."

Most of the people in Hampton who are using heroin are transient and are selling to support their own habit.

"They don’t care where they’re living or what the conditions are as long as there’s a roof over their head," Wrenn’s aid. "They don’t want to pay a lot of money for rent because they want to use it for their habit."

Wrenn has included a request in his 2004 department budget for two new detective positions, which would be hired specifically to target drug cases.

"We feel that the increased amount of drug cases that we’re seeing and the extent of the heroin use in the area warrants us to start to put together an investigative unit that deals primarily with drugs," Wrenn said.

Police say the heroin problem is a multi jurisdictional issue that must be addressed by other agencies from rehabilitation to jail.

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