Miami….A city once built on Cocaine, now run by Heroin!
We have all seen episodes of Miami Vice where Crockett and Tubbs fight to keep kilo after kilo of cocaine off the streets of Miami.
I’m sure most of us have seen the documentary “Cocaine Cowboys” that tells the story of how the Colombian cartels took over the streets of Miami for years pumping tons of cocaine into the Magic City’s streets.
The city of Miami definitely doesn’t like to admit it, but the beautiful new skyline in downtown was basically built off the cocaine trade of the 1980s. Cocaine ruled the roost in Miami for decades until recently. Now a whole new sheriff is in town and its called heroin.
Heroin has always been there in the streets of Miami but it was always second to cocaine. It stayed underground and popular with the old school “kats” from the 1970s and never really made it to the mainstream until the pill epidemic blew through South Florida much like Hurricane Andrew leaving just as much devastation.
Heroin addicts are now overdosing in record numbers in Miami-Dade County. The two low-income neighborhoods of Overtown and Liberty City are being hit the hardest. For example, on a hot Summer morning last year a 43-year-old homeless woman named Mary was walking down 17th Street and just collapsed. As the paramedics raced to her aid, they found fresh vomit all over her and had to give her two shots of narcan to bring her back.
Now, you might think more of this would be the norm, right? More neighborhood residents being found dead or close to it from a heroin overdose. But you would be dead wrong. It isn’t the residents of these low-income neighborhoods who are overdosing in record numbers. It is people from OUTSIDE the neighborhoods coming in to these low-income neighborhoods to purchase the heroin and not making it out.
These numbers may shock you, but out of the 250 heroin overdoses in Miami Dade last year, 213 of them were white victims from outside neighborhoods or areas. And more specifically, 190 of the 213 white victims were white males. This seems to be a far cry from the cocaine statistics that seemed to affect the actual low-income residents more.
So as the city of Miami’s skyline continues to change and grow larger and larger, the drug culture couldn’t be any more different from those days in the 80’s than it is today. Heroin rules the roost now in Miami and its far more deadly than cocaine.
If you find yourself in these low-income areas looking to score drugs you won’t see the groups of ten or more dealers running to your car to serve you cocaine. Those days are long gone in the Magic City. Now you will find the lone “dog” walking through Overtown or Liberty City with heroin for sale. You have to be “plugged” into the drug scene now to find the heroin that is ruling the streets, but it is definitely not recommended. If you are struggling with heroin or any other addiction or know someone who is struggling you can visit us here at www.theaddictionscoach.com or call 1 800 706 0318.
