Even though only a small percentage of people use heroin — or knows someone who does — the drug’s impacts are widespread, according to law enforcement and health officials.

Heroin, they said, is to blame for an increase in drug-related deaths, a higher crime rate and an overall drop in Middletown’s collective health.

In the last three years, heroin has become the drug of choice in Middletown, said Sgt. David Birk of the Middletown Division of Police. It has replaced prescription medications such as Oxycodin because of its low price and easy availability. A capsule of heroin, about 1/10th of a gram, costs only $10, a fraction of the cost of prescription medications, he said.

As heroin abuse has risen, thefts also have dramatically increased in the city, he said. There were 514 theft offenses in the city in 2011 and 559 last year, an increase of 9 percent. Birk said most of those thefts — air conditioners, copper, TVs, you name it — can be traced to an addicts’ appetite for heroin.

“The drugs take over,” Birk said, “and people will do anything to get it.”

For instance, a mother and father recently bailed their son out of jail. Two days later, he stole a television from them to support his habit.

Birk said there were 234 felony arrests in the city in 2011 and 305 for the first 10 months in 2012, and 90 percent of them were heroin related.

The department issued 34 drug search warrants in 2011 and 86 in 2012, an increase of 149 percent, he said. He said 80 percent of those were for heroin.

Heroin use is increasing all over the country, and is a local problem in Middletown, said Forest Clayton, program director for the Coalition for a Healthy Middletown.

“Everybody is affected by it,” Clayton said of the surge in heroin abuse.

In response to this “epidemic,” the group is hosting a community forum Tuesday, he said. Representatives from the community will discuss how the rise of heroin is affecting city. Residents also will be able to share their concerns and ideas of how community members can work together to develop ways to fight the problem.

Jackie Phillips, city health commissioner, said she’s seeing an increase in Hepatitis B, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV, all trends tied to heroin use. She said people are sharing needles and others are turning to prostitution to support their drug habit.

She said heroin use “is all around.”

Clayton said heroin is powerful because “all it takes is one time” to become addicted.

He said sometimes people become addicted to painkillers, then they turn to heroin because it’s easier and cheaper to obtain.

The percentage of people who are admitted for addiction treatment with heroin being their primary drug has risen from 11 percent in 2008 to 23.8 percent last year, according to the Butler County Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services Board. During the same time, cocaine and crack cocaine dropped from 17 percent to 5.2 percent.

Sometimes, those addictions become deadly.

Through March, there have been 15 deaths, five per month, in which heroin was the cause of death, according to the Butler County Coroner’s Office. That number probably will rise because there are several deaths where the cause of death hasn’t been ruled, but heroin was found in their system, the office said.

In 2012, the coroner’s office ruled 49 deaths from toxicity of heroin.

Warren County Coroner’s Office is reporting the same trend. There were seven deaths caused by heroin in 2012, and four more where the deceased had heroin in their system, the coroner’s office said. For the first three months this year, there have been four heroin deaths.

Yvonne Howard Ewers’ life changed on March 21 when her phone rang and she was told her son, Donnie Howard, 38, of Middletown, had died from a heroin overdose.

“I would not want to see anybody else go through this,” she said from her Jacksonville, Fla., home. “It was horrible, the worst nightmare of my life. I literally have no answers.”

She had no idea her son had a drug problem. She has learned that he just started using drugs and when it came to heroin, he was inexperienced. He wasn’t “a thug on the street,” she said.

She has custody of her two grandchildren, 17 and 14, who still don’t understand how their father died. She is going through therapy to help with the loss of her son.

“He had everybody fooled and we never knew,” she said. “It was a secret.”

Community forum

What: Heroin forum presented by Coalition for a Healthy Middletown

When: 6 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Miami University Middletown, community room

There will be representatives from several agencies there to discuss heroin and the impact it’s having on Middletown.

Arrests rising

The number of heroin related arrests in the Butler County Sheriff’s Office has steadily increased over the years, after a drop in 2010.

2005: 19

2006: 24

2007: 25

2008: 52

2009: 117

2010: 96

2011: 137

2012: 233