This is part one of a three-part series on heroin addiction in the Mahoning Valley.
Local law enforcement will tell you that 80 percent of the street crime in this area is somehow related to drugs.
And the biggest offender, the drug that more people here are addicted to than any other, is heroin.
"I've asked myself countless times why it wasn't me who died on April 11. And I will probably continue to do so until I can find my own answers," said Rachel Zorger of Canfield.
Zorger is in prison, serving a 5-year-sentence for aggravated vehicular homicide. She was driving drunk when she hit a 55-year-old woman named Darla Schumacher head-on, killing her. Zorger was also 6 months pregnant at the time and her unborn baby died too.
"Since that time, she admits to the pre-sentence investigators that she continues to use marijuana and heroin and consumes alcohol," said Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Ken Cardinal.
Zorger admits she has struggled with drug and alcohol abuse since she was a teenager, but she's just one example of a much larger issue.
"Probably about four years ago, five years ago, we started to notice kind of a change in our drug cases. They switched from being predominantly cocaine-based, to mostly heroin-based," said Boardman Police Chief Jack Nichols.
Boardman is just one community in the Mahoning Valley plagued by addiction to a drug more potent, and more dangerous, than cocaine, methamphetamine and substances like acid or ecstasy. Heroin is an opiate and it's changing the face of drug addicts.
"I've seen it for years, like a housewife she'll end up with a back injury or something and be on Oxycontins and become addicted and then the prescription ends, and they end up in the heroin realm. It's not uncommon to see good people, people that you go to church with, have these issues," said Boardman Police Chief Jack Nichols.
Good people like Tiffany Kashmiry, a young woman who grew up in Springfield.
"It took me so long to realize when I look back on my life, I was out of control," said Kashmiry, a former heroin addict.
Tiffany started drinking and smoking marijuana in high school and progressively tried stronger, more addicting drugs until she turned to heroin
"It just made me feel good. It was just like euphoric. I thought I was this person that was above everyone else," Tiffany said when asked why she wanted to keep doing drugs.
"It will eventually degenerate into having to commit some type of crime, whether they get caught at it or not," Nichols said.
Tiffany is no exception to this rule. She too would eventually end up in handcuffs, and that won't be the worst problem she faces as a result of her addiction.
Tune in to Thursday's newscasts or check our website Thursday for part two in this series and find out what happened to Tiffany.
