The Cheap New Killer

Drug dealers always seem a step ahead. Whenever a supply is cut off, a new source of dangerous kicks appears.

Thus, in parts of the U.S. where heroin has become difficult to get or too expensive, a cheap—and dangerous—substitute has taken its place. Known as Ts and Blues, it is a mixture of Talwin, a morphine-like painkiller sold only by prescription, and Pyribenzamine, a blue antihistamine tablet available over the counter. They are stolen and sold to junkies for about $10 a pair, one-quarter the price of a hit of heroin. Mixed, dissolved and injected, they give a heroin-like rush—and quickly produce a heroin-like dependency. Says a drug addict in New Orleans, the nation’s Ts and Blues capital: “Heroin is the past tense. This is the present.”

In the U.S. last year, hospitals reported 3,669 cases related to Ts and Blues, compared with 12,785 for heroin. But in some cities—particularly New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, Albany and St. Louis — the new “rig” is more prevalent than heroin. Says Lieut. Lawrence Forberg of the Chicago narcotics squad: “I predict it will possibly equal heroin usage.” Since first appearing in Chicago during the mid-’70s, Ts and Blues have spread with frightening speed. John Mudri, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent in Detroit, began noticing the combination a little over a year ago in early 1980. Says he: “It rose so rapidly that we got to the point where we couldn’t keep up with it.” In New Orleans last year, there were 536 arrests related to the drug; 20 deaths, mainly from seizures, strokes and brain damage; and 40 or so homicides that seem connected to the burgeoning trade. Says New Orleans Narcotics Division Detective David Peralta: “They kill for it just like they do for heroin.”

DEA officials hope the drug can be controlled by limiting the manufacture of Talwin. A pessimistic view comes from St. Louis Police Narcotics Chief Charles McCrary. Says he: “I’m afraid that when high-grade white heroin, which is beginning to reach the East Coast cities from Southwest Asia, starts coming in, the junkies will go back to that.”