Nashville may be ground zero.
Area police have been making bigger heroin busts over the past three years than in the past decade as a fresh influx of cheap, widely available heroin hits the streets. Mexican drug cartels have pumped out more than 400 percent more heroin than just six years ago, and one of the main trafficking routes runs straight through Nashville, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
"Yes, we have seen a rise in heroin in the state of Tennessee," said Kristin Helm, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. "It's up more in Middle Tennessee than in the rest of the state."
Heroin busts in and around Nashville are increasing, with larger quantities being seized.
Dickson County detectives made the biggest heroin bust in county history in June, seizing $90,000 worth of black tar found hidden in a potato chip bag in a car. In September, Metro police nabbed three alleged drug mules carrying more than $50,000 worth of heroin from Ohio to be distributed in and around Nashville.
"I've been doing drug work for about 10 years," said Sgt. Buddy Rhett, in Metro police's narcotics unit. "When I first started drug work, you didn't really see heroin. It's been increasing over the last three years."
In 2007, Nashville officers seized 99 grams of heroin, and in 2009 that number had risen to 991 grams.
Though law enforcement isn't calling the resurgence an epidemic, some treatment centers are seeing more patients with heroin addictions than in the past.
"People are snorting it and injecting it, adolescents all the way to people into their 30s," said Chuck Rapp, admissions coordinator at the Cumberland Heights drug treatment center.
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