On the streets of cities throughout the U.S., a heroin panic is about to
hit. The bad news for strung-out junkies is the result of an
extraordinary strike by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
Last week, after ten days of intricately coordinated arrests in 35
cities, federal narcs had bagged 309 men and women described by DEA
Chief Peter Bensinger as “distributors and kingpins in the heroin
market involving Mexican Brown.” It was the biggest —and perhaps most
important—federal drug bust ever. In addition, warrants were out for
another 150 people. Dangerous Work. Mexican Brown —or Heroin/B as the feds call
it—accounts for more than two-thirds of the horse shot into the arms
of an estimated 400,000 U.S. addicts. The arrests, reports TIME
Correspondent Don Sider, “grew out of several years of usually dull,
sometimes dangerous work that began to come together last May.” Using
information from undercover agents and pushers-turned-informers, the
DEA began tracing in detail the distribution web. Early this month
officials concluded that they knew enough about 57 distribution rings
to try smashing them. With the precision that characterized the campaign throughout,
Administrator Bensinger first filled in U.S. Attorneys who would
prosecute the incoming arrestees, discussed the expected influx of
prisoners with Norman Carlson, director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons,
and consulted Dr. Robert Du-Pont, director of the National Institute on
Drug Abuse, about treatment requirements for addicts who would suddenly
be in trouble as the supply of horse fell . Local hospitals were
even alerted in case the planned arrests led to any injuries. Not a shot actually had to be fired. On the first and biggest day of the bust,
agents scooped up suspects at their homes, offices or hangouts in 19 states.
The only incident occurred in Kansas City, where one accused dealer slammed
into an officer's car in a futile escape attempt. Some of the arrestees lived
well indeed. In one $330,000 Beverly Hills home , agents
found $125,000 in cash—testimony to the enormous profits of the drug
trade.
