Cocaine-Abuse Cases Leap 83% in County’s Emergency Rooms

While emergency room visits for drug-abuse treatment in Los Angeles County have declined slightly overall since 1985, visits for cocaine abuse have “skyrocketed,” as they have across the country, health officials said Tuesday.

Cocaine-abuse cases were up by more than 83% in the county. But a significant decrease in the number of PCP-related cases and a slowing in the number of heroin cases accounted for an overall decrease of 6.6% in drug-related emergency room visits, the officials said.

Increases in the number of cocaine-abuse cases in hospital emergency rooms were even more dramatic in other cities: 185% in Philadelphia, 108% in Phoenix and 148% in Buffalo, according to information from a National Institute of Drug Abuse report released this week.

“Cocaine has been skyrocketing everywhere,” said Dr. Irma Strantz, drug-abuse program administrator for the Department of Health Services, which furnished data from the county for the national report. “Cocaine, particularly the crack form, is plentiful and cheap.”

The most frequently treated drug-abuse cases in county emergency rooms involve amphetamines, with cocaine only slightly behind. PCP ranks third and heroin fourth, Strantz said.

Nearly 1,280 deaths in the county last year were drug-related, Strantz said. The primary killer was alcohol in combination with other drugs. Cocaine was second, she said.

The easier availability of the drug, which was once associated with high-income drug users, has dramatically increased its use in low-income neighborhoods.

“We see more than double the cases we did five years ago,” said Cheri Allmond, emergency room supervising nurse at Martin Luther King Hospital in South-Central Los Angeles. “We see a lot of young people coming in with chest pains and heart attacks.”

Dr. Gail Anderson, who heads emergency services at County-USC Medical Center on the eastern edge of downtown, said there has been a definite increase in cocaine-related drug problems there. “PCP use is less than it was a year ago,” he added.

PCP-related cases treated in county emergency rooms dropped more than 22% between 1985 and 1987, according to Strantz. Amphetamines, heroin and morphine cases increased slightly, while the number of cases involving such sedatives as codeine and Valium fell by 45%.

In contrast, heroin-related emergency-room admissions were up 37% in Washington, 51% in Newark, N.J., 45% in Seattle and 488% in New Orleans, according to the national report. In St. Louis, emergency room PCP admissions were up 387%. Methamphetamine admissions were up 275% in Seattle, 156% in San Diego and 53% in Texas.

Strantz said that 30 years ago, when heroin was more heavily used, “the big problem was dirty needles . . . and embolisms from injecting air into the arteries,” she said.

“With cocaine, we’re finding that it’s dreadfully damaging to the nervous and circulatory systems.

“We’re seeing young people in their 20s having tiny strokes because of cocaine.”

In releasing portions of the federal drug-abuse report this week, Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) criticized the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for not distributing the report widely. The agency, which oversees the National Institute of Drug Abuse, labeled the report “for administrative use only,” which means it is available to the public only upon request, Rangel said.

Rangel said that top Administration health officials and the President’s drug policy adviser have been quick to announce even slight declines in national drug use.

“But here is a report that really documents the nature and seriousness of the drug crisis, and the Administration is silent,” he said.