Houston is among six cities in the U.S. where heroin availability increased in 2018, according to the annual National Drug Threat Assessment of 2019 released Thursday by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Houston joined Atlanta, Dallas, New Orleans, St. Louis and Washington, where DEA offices indicated heroin was more available than in 2017. In Miami and New England, meanwhile, offices reported heroin was less available.

The agency also said that of the total of 1,932 kilograms of heroin seized in 2018, the largest amounts were found in Arizona, California and Texas.

A spokesman for the Houston Police Department’s Narcotics Division said Thursday that while heroin and its derivatives are on the rise in general, methamphetamine is the No. 1 issue when it comes to drugs locally.

The report said that methamphetamine continues to be a readily available illegal drug in the country, with a high presence in Texas cities but increasing in Dallas and El Paso.

The report also said that the availability of fentanyl, a highly lethal synthetic opioid frequently sold mixed with heroin and other drugs such as cocaine, was high and growing across the country. Houston, Dallas and El Paso agents detected more availability in 2018 compared to the previous year.

Fentanyl continued showing a pattern of previous years. Although it is primarily trafficked across the Southwest border, where more of the seizes also occur, it is more available in the northeast, Great Lakes and Midwest.

DEA’s Acting Administrator Uttam Dhillon said in a press release that the drug landscape is shifting.

“We’re pleased that in 2018, drug overdose deaths declined over 4 percent overall, with even greater decreases - over 13 percent - in overdoses from controlled prescription opioids,” he said. In the report introductory letter, however, Dhillon wrote that the final statistics of drug overdose deaths, and from prescription opioids in particular, were still pending.

DEA does not directly track fatal drug overdoses, but the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quoted in the report indicated that deaths from prescription opioids in the country showed a slight yearly decrease of less than 1 percent in 2017, after peaking in 2016.

However, overall in the country, the opioid threat, which includes controlled prescription drugs, synthetic opioids, and heroin, continues at ever-increasing epidemic levels, affecting large portions of the United States.

Traffickers continue to find creative ways to conceal drugs, the report said. A unique method discovered in Texas used industrial drill bits, which are indented metallic parts of machinery to cut rock. The pieces were bought in the U.S. and sent to Juarez, Mexico, to be filled with methamphetamine.

A tip lead authorities to seize 16.6 kilograms of methamphetamine hidden inside the drill bits’ compartments when traffickers attempted to smuggle the drug in May through the Presidio point of entry in Texas.

The report also noted that marijuana seizures along the Southwest border with Mexico continue to decline as illegal consumption shifts to nationally grown cannabis.

olivia.tallet@chron.com

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