Drug war story advisory - latimes.com

Drug war story advisory - latimes.com
Originally the domain of rock stars, hippies and inner-city junkies, heroin is re-emerging as a dangerous drug of choice across the nation. But this isn't 1970s heroin. These days, Mexican drug smugglers are luring new demographics of users by increasingly peddling a form of ultra-potent heroin that's cheap, pure and frequently deadly.

An Associated Press review of drug overdose data shows that so-called "black tar" heroin and other forms of the drug are contributing to a spike in overdose deaths across the nation and attracting a new generation of users caught off guard by its potency. It's also leaving behind the tortured stories of loved ones whose fathers, mothers, daughters and sons became unwitting victims of the drug trade.

The AP IMPACT story by St. Louis correspondent Jim Salter and El Paso correspondent Alicia Caldwell, slugged BC-US--Drug War-Mexican Heroin, has moved and is accompanied by video, photos and an interactive graphic.