Pubdate: Tue, 06 Apr 2004
Source: Boston Herald (MA)
Copyright: 2004 The Boston Herald, Inc
Contact:  http://www.bostonherald.com/news.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/53
Author: Thomas Caywood
Note: Second of a two-part series on the grip heroin has on locals addicts, 
particularly youths, and the marketing of the drug to teens.

FREE SMACK LURING OUR KIDS: TRAIL STARTS WITH DEALERS IN COLOMBIA

Cops and prosecutors trace the spreading smack scourge here back to a 
calculated decision by South American drug cartels to push heroin over cocaine.

The upshot has been a flood of lethally pure smack that just about any 
Massachusetts eighth-grader can buy with his lunch money.

``The old school rule where you don't sell to kids, those days are long 
gone,'' lamented New Bedford Juvenile Drug Court case manager Robert McPherson.

Authorities say some local drug rings appear to be specifically targeting kids.

``The bags have symbols and colors. They are designed without question to 
attract young people,'' Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett 
said. ``It's frightening.''

Then there's the free samples.

``They'll give it to you free the first couple of times,'' said Earl Dandy, 
director of the Boston teen rehab program Project Rebound. ``A $5 bag of 
heroin? If I'm willing to sacrifice $10, I'm subject to make in the course 
of your using $10,000. So what's $10?''

George Festa, director of the federal New England High Intensity Drug 
Trafficking Area program, or HIDTA, which coordinates law enforcement 
efforts, can hardly believe how cheap and pure heroin has gotten here.

He was a DEA agent in 1994 when super-pure heroin started showing up. 
Chemical testing revealed it was coming from Colombia, not the traditional 
sources in South East Asia.

In the years that followed, it became clear Colombian drug cartels were 
executing a disturbing new business plan to take over and expand the heroin 
market here by slashing prices and hiking purity.

``It's worked,'' said Lowell Police Sgt. James Trudel, a narcotics officer 
who says heroin use among young people, especially suburban kids, has grown 
drastically over the last few years.

A recovering teen addict from Lynn, who agreed to share his story on the 
condition his name not be used, said his years of doing and selling drugs 
like OxyContin and heroin brought him in contact with peers from all over 
the North Shore.

``I've met kids that come from some of the wealthiest families in 
Marblehead, Hamilton, Wenham all the way down to the slums,'' he said. 
``It's everywhere.''

Heroin taken off Bay State streets is consistently more than 50 percent 
pure and often tops 90 percent purity, Festa said. In the rest of the 
country, average purity is less than 40 percent. Years ago, heroin barely 
20 percent pure sold for $30 or $40 a hit.

At today's prices, though, just about any kid can afford to tangle with 
``Big Harry.''

``You pick up some money from mommy's change or go in daddy's ash tray and 
pull the change out of there. Then it graduates to going into 
pocketbooks,'' Dandy said.

Blodgett figures it's easier and cheaper for most teens to score smack then 
to get hold of a six pack of beer.

``It's very unsettling,'' he said. ``We're seeing more and more of it in 
the schools.''

The Essex County Drug Task Force made 300 heroin-related busts last year 
and seized more than 21,000 single-dose bags of heroin and 2,172 grams of 
pure heroin, enough for more than 65,000 additional single-dose bags.

HIDTA task forces in the greater Boston and Worcester areas scooped up 
about 4.5 kilograms of heroin last year, the equivalent of roughly 135,000 
doses.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart