OxyContin use down in Vt. but heroin use increases - WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

By DAVE GRAM
Associated Press

WATERBURY, Vt. (AP) - The top Vermont State Police drug investigator says efforts to make OxyContin harder to abuse have succeeded in the state.

But Lt. Matt Birmingham, head of the Vermont Drug Task Force, says one notable result has been addicts switching to an older scourge: heroin.

Birmingham likens the situation to Whac-a-Mole. Once one problem is addressed, another resurfaces.

State medical examiner statistics provide another glimpse of Vermont's growing heroin problems. Deaths attributed in whole or in part to heroin overdose averaged less than 2.5 per year from 2004 to 2010. There were nine last year.

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