Vanessa Dietz/Daily Mining Gazette UPSET Commander Detective Lt. Tim Sholander discussed community drug problems with concerned area residents last week in L'Anse.

L’ANSE — Boy, point, dope, H, junk, smack, tar, skag and jab … they’re all names for the same thing: heroin, a drug now in high demand here.

Complex inter-related issues surround the burgeoning illegal drug trade currently plaguing our area, but they are being addressed by a group in the know: the Upper Peninsula Substance Enforcement Team, known here as UPSET West.

UPSET Commander Detective Lt. Tim Sholander, who’s been working in the eastern and central U.P. for several years, has seen it all before. And the signs are all here in Houghton, Baraga and Ontonagon counties, where UPSET West is centered.

In the 1990s, doctors began prescribing a new wonder drug for pain called oxycodone, or synthetic heroin, that differs from heroin by just one molecule, Sholander said. While it was quite effective, many patients became addicted to the opiate. When the prescriptions ran out or they wanted something stronger, addicts turned to street drugs like heroin.

The ensuing epidemic created a market for not only the prescription drugs that addicts and others began selling, but also the highly addictive street drug, heroin.

“In 2015, we saw an increased number of doctors prescribing suboxone in Delta County,” Sholander said, for the treatment of drug addiction to oxycodone, methadone and heroin. “It was the number one drug being sold on the black market in Delta County. (Drug abusers) were selling this drug,” to get more potent black-market prescription drugs and street drugs, the desire for which suboxone is designed to suppress.

“Doctors and pharmacies in Delta County saw crimes increase,” Sholander said, so they quit prescribing it. But addicts sought doctors from out of the area who were willing to provide them their prescriptions for a sizable fee every month. The epidemic grew with users buying heroin with the proceeds from selling their pills and anything else they could beg, borrow or steal.

That’s when dealers from Milwaukee and Chicago started making deliveries, realizing profits at a much higher margin here than in the cities.

“They’re constantly coming up here to the U.P.,” Sholander said. “Heroin in Menominee saw drug deals in McDonald’s parking lot.”

And there’s a “huge amount in Houghton. Hopefully, we can see cases evolve,” Sholander said. “Users wear long sleeves,” he said, not only because they’re cold, but also to hide the telltale tracks on their arms, typical of intravenous drug users.

He suggested people take photographs of suspicious drug paraphernalia, rather than handle it, because the substances are toxic.

Sholander encourages people to report suspected drug activity by calling 911 or UPSET at (906) 228-1002. Anonymous tips can be made on the team’s website: www.upsetdrugs.com.