THE THREE MOST DANGEROUS WORDS ARE ‘NOT MY KID. ’
ous words are, ‘Not my kid.’” Experimentation is all the more tempting because curious thrill seek- ers and reckless abusers don’t need a needle to inject heroin. The drug is now so pure, it can be snorted or smoked and at a fraction of the cost of widely abused prescription opiates like Oxycodone and Vicodin, which can cost up to $35 a pill, compared to $5 for a packet of heroin. The statistics are staggering. In Connecticut, 10,000 people were admitted for treatment for heroin last year at licensed programs, the highest total in eight years. Heroin-related overdose deaths were up by 48 percent. In New Jersey the number of people seeking treatment for heroin abuse hit a five-year high of 25,000 in 2012, with almost 600 people dead from heroin overdoses statewide. In New York, only five years ago, the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug De- pendence was serving just under 100 families a month. At last count, the council helped more than 850 families, with 80 percent of that increase due to opiate and heroin addiction. As the numbers create a mind-numbing picture of death and de- bacle for our unsuspecting youth, alarm bells are ringing all across schools, police stations, hospital ER’s and rehab centers across the tri-state area. The question is, can the warnings work fast enough to stop the scourge of heroin deaths? Kids and young adults are at greatest risk, succumbing to the prom- ise of an incredible high and easy availability of the drug. For many, the gateway to heroin is opened with prescription painkillers, a class of drugs known as opioids, which are derived from opium, and in- clude morphine, oxycodone, and hydrocodone as well as heroin. All opioids share a similar molecule and when they attach to the brain’s opiate receptor, they cause a very similar effect. They provide a posi- tive reinforcement, which is the euphoric effect of the drug but they also provide a very strong negative reinforcer, which is the sickness that occurs once the user stops the drug. The two factors together make opioids extremely addictive. In the wealthy Fairfield County community of Darien, CT, police of- ficer Sergeant Jeremiah Marron heads up a new enforcement unit, which was started to tackle a rising narcotics problem. The program is dubbed “Heroin is Here–Darien’s Dirty Little Secret.” “We’ve seen kids as young as 12 years old taking opioids, and we know for some that leads directly to heroin use,” says Marron. “We are seeing our crime level rise in direct proportion to the rise in heroin use. Our car burglaries are epidemic, as kids break into unlocked cars to steal $20 and any items they can pawn. We had 17 car burglaries in a single night. Those crimes are directly related to the dramatic need for quick cash that drug addiction inspires. We want to alert parents about the increasing risks and how to be more aware of what is happening with their kids.” Dr. Eric Collins, physician-in chief of Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, CT, a well-known hospital that specializes in the treatment of addictive disorders, provides background for the in-
crease in heroin abuse. “Over the past 25 years, drugs have simply become much more available throughout our society. There was a tremendous increase in the prescription of opioid pain relievers like Oxycodone, Oxycontin, and Percocet. Many people have a great number of painkillers in their medicine cabinets, along with an as- sortment of other drugs. “For our kids, one of the take-home messages was about the easy avail- ability of painkillers,” explains Dr. Collins. After it became undeniable that the widespread prescription of pain- killers across the nation resulted in a dramatic rise of addicted users, there was a huge movement to cut back the prescription of such drugs. Authorities cracked down on so-called “pill-mills” – clinics where doc- tors liberally prescribed powerful painkillers with questionable justifica- tion. It also became harder to fill prescriptions; doctors were no longer able to prescribe opioids over the phone. At the same time, heroin became widely and cheaply available, typically entering the east coast from Mexico through port cities like Newark, NJ. Suddenly, it was cheaper to use heroin than the painkillers to which so many were already addicted. For many, it is an easy switch. Steven (name has been changed), age 31, now off drugs for eight months, agreed to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity. His demeanor was intense and he was filled with a nervous energy. “A cat has nine lives. So far, I’ve had ten,” he says. When he was 13, he lived in an affluent town in Long Island, where he started smoking pot and doing magic mushrooms. In high school he frequented clubs, taking stimulants like Ecstacy, hallucinogens like Special K and cocaine. A gifted athlete, he played all-state football and lacrosse, which he continued in college. There, he joined a fraternity and contin- ued to indulge in alcohol and drugs of all kinds. At 20, he broke one hip, then the other, requiring several surgeries. At 21, he was completely addicted to painkillers and was prescribed methadone to help him get off the Oxycodone. Instead, he took both and got ever more heavily into trouble. Between the ages of 23 and 27 he says he became one of the biggest Oxycodone drug dealers in his state, sell- ing more than a thousand pills a day. His first arrest was at the age of 27, where he was sentenced to a court ordered rehab program, which cleaned him up but failed to help him stay off drugs in the long run. He began using heroin as a cheaper alternative to opioids, and began a long slow dance with death that resulted in a total of ten overdoses. “Heroin was the downfall of my life. You don’t realize when you go from pills to heroin. You just think it’s a better high. You evolve very quickly. You start loving it. But before you know it, it takes over. “First it’s a mind thing. You have no problems, no fears, you feel so good, so relaxed, nothing bothers you. It’s like that for a while, but once your body gets physically addicted, every day your entire day is focused
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